Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BILLS [Lords]

STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO, COMPLIED WITH

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bill originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:

CARDIFF CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

Bill to be read a Second time.

PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS

No STANDING ORDERS APPLICABLE

Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That in the case of the following Bills, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, namely:

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Wetherby District Water) Bill.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Harrogate) Bill.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Bucks Water Board) Bill.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Banbury Water) Bill.

Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Chiltern Hills Spring Water) Bill.

Marriages Provisional Order Bill.

Bills to be read a Second time upon the next Sitting Day.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Children's Shoes

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that while ample stocks of adults' shoes are available in shops there is a shortage, particularly in London, of children's shoes; that this shortage is causing much anxiety to parents, schools and nurseries; that his Department has been repeatedly warned of the development of the shortage; and what steps are being taken to meet the difficulty?

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Dalton): Some shortage of children's shoes is, I am afraid, inevitable at this stage of the war, since we have lost nearly all our rubber supplies, and hides must mainly be imported from overseas and run the risk of enemy action on the way. Civilian requirements must, moreover, be balanced against very heavy Service requirements. I cannot, therefore, hold out any hopes of an increase in the total civilian supplies. I have, however, been taking steps to maintain the supply of children's footwear at the highest possible level and gave instructions last October to switch production, so far as feasible, from adults' to children's footwear. The production of children's leather footwear has now for some months been at the rate of about 30,000,000 pairs a year, that is to say more than three pairs a year per child. More children's leather footwear is being produced now than before the war, though no new rubber footwear for children is being made. I am also encouraging the development of children's shoe and clothing exchanges which, with the help of the W.V.S. and other women's organisations, are making rapid progress in many parts of the country. These exchanges are principally for children under five, but I am glad to say that many schools are running similar exchanges for older children. The House may rest assured that, in spite of the inevitable difficulties which lie ahead, I shall do my utmost to maintain supplies for the children.

Mr. Stewart: Is the right hon. Gentleman that the complaint is not of a


shortage of adult shoes? There are plenty of useless, stupid, adult shoes available. The shortage of children's shoes is extremely grave. Is he aware that, although our home production has certainly increased, it is the shortage of overseas supplies that causes the trouble, and that a special increase is needed? What is the Department doing to satisfy that special demand?

Mr. Dalton: I have given the figures of the shortage and of our present production. Those figures should be known. Overseas supplies are, of course, a very grave pre-occupation. The U-boat is still the enemy of the child. I have indicated that cargoes of hides have to run the gauntlet of enemy action. We are very well aware of these matters, and I have given evidence to show that we have had them very much in mind for some time.

Mr. Stewart: I beg to give notice that I will raise this question on the Adjournment.

Mr. Clement Edwards: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is necessary to have strong shoes for the country child?

Toys (Price)

Mr. Levy: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the new price control order for toys, Statutory Rule and Order, 1943, No. 615, will result in the same article being offered in different shops at a wide divergency of prices, the difference between the highest and the lowest being as much as 33i⅓ per cent.; and what action he proposes to take to prevent this anomaly?

Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. But this is not peculiar to the price of toys. Variations in retail prices were normal in peacetime, and it is not in the public interest to eliminate them.

Mr. Levy: I think the right hon. Gentleman is doing what he can, but the toy industry as a whole is rather disturbed. If he will give the matter further consideration, I am sure that he will be able to eliminate a number of these anomalies.

Mr. Dalton: I have given a good deal of time and thought to the question of toys and have thought it desirable to have prices fixed well in advance for next Christmas. That is why the Order has been made now. If you fix prices at each successive stage between the manufacturer

and the consumer, as you must do, if there is a variation in the number of stages there must be a consequent variation in the maximum price. These are maxima within which a good number of sales take place.

Concentration of Industries

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the President of the Board of Trade the number of businesses that have been concentrated up to date, stating what are those businesses, the number of firms closed down by this process and the number of nucleus firms left; whether concentration is being pursued further; and, if so, which industries are to be dealt with?

Mr. Dalton: Concentration of production has been applied by my Department to nearly 70 branches of industry. Up to date, 6,156 nucleus certificates have been issued and 3,294 establishments have been closed. The only industries where concentration is now proceeding are the clothing and printing industries.

Mr. Davies: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the desirability of not concentrating industries in those parts of the country which suffered severe industrial depression between the two wars and are likely to suffer it again when this war is over?

Mr. Dalton: I think my hon. Friend knows that I am very deeply concerned to see that we do not have, so far as it is within our power to prevent it, any repetition of the state of affairs in prewar distressed areas. These concentration matters are a war-time provision, and it is laid down in the White Paper issued by my predecessor that the Government will give all facilities for the re-opening at the end of the war of businesses which have been closed down. I will, however, bear in mind what my hon. Friend said.

Mr. Davies: If my right hon. Friend concentrates some of these small businesses out of existence during the war, it does not follow that they will re-open at the end of the war.

Clothes Rationing (Heavy Industries)

Mr. Daggar: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the difficulty experienced by persons engaged in mining and other heavy industries in obtaining suitable clothes with the coupons now available, he is disposed


to reconsider the position and increase the number of coupons allotted to them?

Mr. Dalton: On all these matters I am advised by the T.U.C. Full particulars of the arrangements made, after consultation with the T.U.C., for meeting the special needs of miners and workers in other heavy industries were given in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) on 7th April last.

Mr. Daggar: Are negotiations still pending between the T.U.C. and the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Dalton: I am constantly in touch with them. They have regular meetings with my officers at the Board of Trade and we are constantly watching these matters. The latest provision that has been made is that, in addition to the General Occupational Supplement, there has been set up a special pool of coupons in each undertaking for workers in the heavy industries—in the case of miners and iron and steel workers at the rate of five coupons per head. These are distributed by committees on which the workers are represented.

Mr. Daggar: I am quite aware of this arrangement, but it is because it is still unsatisfactory that I raised the question.

Mr. Dalton: I am afraid that this and many other matters will go on being somewhat unsatisfactory until the end of the war.

Perambulators

Major Peto: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that utility perambulators are made without extensions and without brakes; and, as without extensions these are generally useless for babies after about 10 months old, and as without brakes they frequently endanger the lives of their occupants, will he take steps to remedy these defects?

Mr. Dalton: A large number of wartime perambulators are made with drop-ends and can, therefore, be adapted for use by older children. In view of the vital need to save material and labour, fitted brakes cannot now be provided, but a sufficient supply of leather strap brakes is available.

Bespoke Tailoring

Mr. Hutchinson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the dissatisfaction which exists among bespoke tailors concerning certain aspects of the operation of clothing control in its application to bespoke tailoring, and concerning the present methods of consultation with the clothing industry, he will arrange for the appointment of special officers in his Department to operate control in the bespoke clothing trade and for special consultation with the trade?

Mr. Dalton: The organisations which represent the bespoke tailoring trade are already in constant touch with my Department, and I see no reason for appointing special officers to deal solely with matters affecting the bespoke trade.

Mr. Hutchinson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the widespread dissatisfaction in the bespoke tailoring trade?

Mr. Dalton: There are two organisations, the National Federation of Merchant Tailors and a more recent break-away organisation. I have seen both, and they have seen my Director-General of Civilian Clothing on several occasions, and we do our utmost to meet their requests, but I must frankly say that some of their requests are quite unacceptable in view of the present shortage.

Commander Sir Archibald Southby: To what extent are bespoke tailors represented on the committee which deals with tailoring and clothing generally?

Mr. Dalton: I am not sure to which committee the hon. and gallant Gentleman refers.

Sir A. Southby: The one that deals with tailoring and the wholesale manufacture of clothes.

Mr. Dalton: There is one that advises us on which the National Federation is represented.

Works of Art (Export)

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that there is a steady drain to the United States of America of the richest treasures of this country in furniture, pictures, plate and the like; and whether he will lock into this situation and take the action best calculated to bring it to an end?

Mr. Dalton: No articles more than 75 years old, nor any work of art, may be exported without a licence from the Board of Trade. When, in any particular case, my officers are in doubt whether export is in the public interest, they consult the Museum authorities and only issue a licence with their concurrence.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that there is an important outflow of objects of art from this. country, and does he not think, whatever private reasons may apply to a sale, there are solid public reasons for retaining for the nation these quite irreplaceable products of the crafts of a former generation?

Mr. Dalton: I should be very grateful if the Noble Lord would give me examples of these rich treasure that are being exported. The answer that I have given suggests that there are sufficient safeguards, and the Museum authorities ought to be good judges of what it is in the public interest to retain in the country.

Mr. Bartle Bull: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think there is, and has been, a considerable inflow of American money into this country and that to do a thing like this now would be one of the most foolish things we could do?

Mr. Dalton: I should like to have particulars.

Sir Herbert Williams: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that unless snobbish Americans buy the furniture of aristocratic houses, we shall not be able to pay for a Ministry of Social Security?

Mr. Rhys Davies: Does my right hon. Friend include in the export of treasures to America the Prime Minister?

Mr. Hutchinson: Should not there be an absolute ban on this export?

Mr. Dalton: I am afraid that I have failed to make myself cleat. There is a ban in the sense that an export licence from the Board of Trade must be obtained before any work of art is exported. That is a ban unless I raise it, and I keep it down if the Museum authorities want me to keep it down. I consult them on all cases of doubt.

AXIS POWERS (SUPPLIES FROM DENMARK AND RUMANIA)

Sir A. Southby: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare whether he has any information as to the extent to which factories in Denmark are being utilised by the Germans for the production of war material and propelling plant; and what is his estimate of the amount of oil supplied to Germany from the Rumanian oilfields?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare (Mr. Dingle Foot): Yes, Sir. The Danish capacity for the manufacture of war material in the strict sense of the term is extremely small. There have, however, been deliveries to Germany ever since the occupation of small calibre A.A. guns, and there is reason to believe that such deliveries are still continuing. I have also received information showing that Danish firms have been engaged in the manufacture of engineering components for incorporation in items of war material assembled in German factories. The manufacture of propelling machinery in Denmark is largely a matter of marine diesel engine production, which was covered by the reply which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend on 26th January. The value to the enemy of this manufacturing capacity is much reduced by the restrictions which his present oil position imposes upon his use of this type of engine. As regards the second part of the Question, it is estimated that oil supplies are now reaching Germany and Italy from Rumania at the rate of approximately three million tons a year.

Sir A. Southby: Will my hon. Friend see that any target in Scandinavia and Denmark from which supplies are going to Germany is put on the list of those to be bombed by the Royal Air Force?

Mr. Foot: My answer is two-fold. While it is true that my Department has certain advisory functions in connection with bomb targets, the final responsibility for the selection of targets must always rest with the Air Ministry. Secondly, my hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate that it is difficult to discuss specific bomb targets in public Debate.

Sir A. Southby: But is not my hon. Friend aware that his Department submits possible targets to the Air Ministry?

WAR OFFICE (PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICERS)

Mr. De la Bere: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the number of public relations and Press officers at the War Office, which was given in the official record in May, 1942, as 356 at a cost of £112,370, he can state what the increase or decrease has been in May, 1943; and whether the future policy of the War Office will be to reduce both the number and cost?

The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Grigg): The net reduction in numbers since May, 1942, is 63. The future policy is under review.

Mr. De la Bere: Can my right hon. Friend tell me what is even now the necessity for such a very large number of people being employed by the War Office on this work, and can he say how many of this number are of military age? Is it not possible to get them reduced to a reasonable number? It is a very bad example.

Sir J. Grigg: I have answered Questions with regard to military age, but if the hon. Members wants the up-to-date figures, I would ask him to put a Question down. As regards the other part of the supplementary, I said that the future policy is under review, but I would like to point out that most of the complaints against the War Office are that the Army is not getting enough publicity.

Mr. De la Bere: The number is very large indeed.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

Explosives (Accidents to Children)

Sir H. Williams: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can now give consideration to the question of the defence of contributory negligence against infants under the age of 16 who are injured in connection with explosives left by military personnel; whether, in view of the new type of danger now brought to children in this connection and the increased use of these explosives through intensified training, he will waive this defence in all cases where permanent injury is caused, so that in such cases compensation can always be paid for the benefit of the maimed victim?

Sir J. Grigg: My hon. Friend's proposal has been carefully and sympathetically considered. In questions of this kind I feel, however, that I must be guided by the general attitude of courts of law in similar cases. Children over 10 are usually regarded as capable of contributory negligence and I regret therefore that I do not feel justified in issuing a general direction as suggested by my hon. Friend. Every case is considered separately on its own merits and ex-gratia payments are often made and other assistance given notwithstanding contributory negligence. In conjunction with my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education steps are being taken to bring these dangers to the notice of all concerned by means of posters and warnings issued to schools and on the wireless.

Sir H. Williams: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his sympathetic reply, may I ask him to impress on the authorities the great importance of not leaving about dangerous explosives which are the cause of these accidents?

Sir J. Grigg: I will certainly do my best to do that, but in the more realistic military training a certain amount of that becomes inevitable.

Home Guard (Bicycles)

Major Sir Adrian Baillie: asked the Secretary of State for War for what reason bicycles recently issued to Home Guard mobile platoons are being withdrawn?

Sir J. Grigg: I am not aware that any bicycles used by the Home Guard have been withdrawn, but if my hon. and gallant Friend will send me particulars of the cases he has in mind, they will be investigated.

Territorial Army Officers (Promotion)

Mr. Turton: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will reintroduce substantive promotion in the Territorial Army that has been embodied?

Sir J. Grigg: I am not satisfied that there is sufficient case for changing the present policy under which Territorial Army officers receive promotion under war-time regulations only.

Mr. Turton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in some units Regular Army officers are receiving substantive promotion which has been denied to Territorial officers, and will he reconsider the matter?

Sir J. Grigg: Substantive promotion in the case of the Regular Army is based on the pre-war establishment.

Personnel, Prisoner of War Camps

Mr. Bartle Bull: asked the Secretary of State for War the number of soldiers passed A.I and fit far military service who are now employed at prisoner of war camps; if they are eligible for service overseas; and whether he will consider replacing these men soon by men who are older and are not A.I, or who have already seen some active service?

Sir J. Grigg: About 850 non-commissioned officers and men employed at prisoner of war camps are under 40 and in medical category A.I. The position is reviewed from time to time, and as many A.I men are released as possible, but my hon. Friend will appreciate that a nucleus of these men is necessary as stiffeners for the large majority who are of low medical category.

Mr. Bull: Does the right hon. Gentleman seriously consider that a nucleus of these men is necessary to guard what are mostly Italian prisoners? Surely it is fantastic.

Sir J. Grigg: Yes, Sir. I am satisfied that such a nucleus is necessary.

PRISONERS OF WAR

Sir Geoffrey Shakespeare: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will make a further effort, through the Protecting Power, to obtain a full list of British prisoners in Japanese hands as a result of the fighting in the Malay Peninsula and the capitulation at Singapore?

Sir J. Grigg: The flow of notifications by the Japanese Government of the names of British prisoners of war in their hands has shown a distinct improvement lately, and I do not think that further representations through the Protecting Power at the present juncture would result in a speeding-up of the process.

Sir G. Shakespeare: In view of the fact that these lists were compiled over a year ago and have been deliberately withheld by the Japanese Government, will the British Government let it be known that the refusal of the Japanese Government to follow the practice of civilised countries will be borne in mind when the final reckoning is made?

Sir J. Grigg: There are a large number of other counts against the Japanese, and some of them much more serious than this. I have no doubt that all these things are being put down in the bill.

Dr. Russell Thomas: Is there a Protecting Power? I understood that the Swiss Government were unable to act in this respect.

Sir J. Grigg: There is a Protecting Power. My recollection is that they are not given the normal access which Protecting Powers in other cases are given.

Commander Loeker-Lampson: asked the Secretary of State for War whether it is his intention that before long the bulk of the German prisoners captured in Tunisia and elsewhere will be employed on the land and on reconstruction work in this country?

Sir J. Grigg: For a variety of reasons I do not think that my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion is practicable.

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that no communications have been received by some relatives of men held as prisoners of war in Campo P.G. 154 since October last; and can he say what action is being taken to trace the present location of these men?

Sir J. Grigg: As regards the first part of the Question, the answer is "Yes, Sir," and I regret to say that inquiries that have been made about individuals through the International Red Cross have failed to elicit any information about them. As regards the second part of the Question, urgent requests for information have been made to the Italian Government, but so far without result.

Mr. Turton: asked the Secretary of State for War whether any Service or battle-dress, the property of officers who have been taken prisoner, is at present being held in the baggage depots in the Middle East; and whether, in such cases, he will arrange for the despatch of the Service or battle-dress to the relative prison camp?

Sir J. Grigg: The kit of officers who are taken prisoner is held in the Middle East for a short time and then as shipping permits is sent back to this country for storage. The kit cannot be disposed of in the Middle East without the officer's


directions, and before these were received the kit would in many cases have left the Middle East. Even if it had not, it would be difficult to implement my hon. Friend's proposal as the only means of sending things directly from the Middle East to enemy prison camps is by it lb. postal parcel, and I do not think it would be desirable for special arrangements to be made in the Middle East for opening officers' kits and sending them individual items of clothing.

Mr. Turton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is done frequently in many cases of individual officers, and has been done in the last six months?

Sir J. Grigg: If so, it is done against the Regulations.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that seven weeks ago Roman Catholics in Oflag IX A/ H were transferred to Oflag IX A /Z; that this camp, where there are also many seriously wounded, is overcrowded, 570 being housed in accommodation which used normally to hold 100 to 150 girls; that washing, cooking and sanitary arrangements are very bad; and whether he will make representations, through the Protecting Power, with a view to the improvement of these conditions?

Sir J. Grigg: The answer to the first part of the Question is, "Yes, Sir." I understand that this move was made because there is a Roman Catholic chaplain at the new camp. I believe Oflag IX A /Z was formerly a boarding school for boys, but I do not know how many pupils it accommodated. The report of a visit carried out by the Protecting Power at the end of November, 1942, states that the washing and sanitary arrangements were adequate and that there were no complaints about the cooking arrangements. The camp was visited by a representative of the International Red Cross at the end of March. The telegraphic report on the visit states that the accommodation was then overcrowded and the sanitary installations inadequate. The full report is expected soon, and the attention of the Protecting Power will certainly be drawn to any unsatisfactory features it may disclose.

Sir A. Knox: Has the right hon. Gentleman any idea why it is that the reports

of the Protecting Power are so invariably optimistic and do not tally with the letters which we get from prisoners?

Sir J. Grigg: I could not give any general explanation about that, because it would be an admission of a general statement which I am not prepared to accept without a good deal of further investigation, but in this particular case there is an interval of four months between the two reports, and it is clear that the circumstances have altered materially.

Captain Godfrey Nicholson: In view of the distress that will be caused to relatives by a Question like this, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that certain officers, including myself, have received better reports from that camp than the Question of my hon. and gallant Friend implies? Also, I believe that not only the Red Cross but representatives of the Protecting Power visited the camp at the end of March or the beginning of April, and will the right hon. Gentleman get a special report?

Sir J. Grigg: One of the awkward features about conditions in prisoner-of-war camps is that we do get contradictory and conflicting testimony from prisoners in the same camp about conditions there.

Captain Nicholson: Will the right hon. Gentleman get a special report from the Swiss Government? I understand that representatives of the Swiss Government visited the camp.

Sir J. Grigg: A special report from the International Red Cross is on its way.

BITUMEN

Mr. Clement Davies: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware that the supplies of bitumen are now so restricted that various manufacturing processes are being seriously handicapped; and whether any considerable quantity of bitumen is being used on road and runway construction although available fluxed pitch could equally well be used for such purposes at a price much lower than bitumen?

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd George): In order to reduce the consumption of imported oil, it is the policy of my Ministry, with the co-opera


tion of other Ministries, and of the industries concerned, to secure the fullest possible use of coal tar products in place of bitumen for manufacturing processes and for roads and runways. The quantity of bitumen used for road and runway construction is relatively small as compared with fluxed pitch, and I am advised by my right hon. and Noble Friend the Minister of War Transport that care is taken to ensure that bitumen is not used for such work if fluxed pitch could be used with satisfactory results.

COMMUNIST PARTY ORGAN, SOUTH AFRICA

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs on what grounds "Inkululeko," official organ of the Communist Party of South Africa, is prohibited from entering the Protectorates of Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland; on what grounds the request by the Communist Party of South Africa for an interview with the High Commissioner for the Protectorates, in order to appeal against the ban, was refused; and whether, in view of the fact that "Inkululeko" is not restricted anywhere in the Union of South Africa, he will take steps to see that this prohibition is removed?

The Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Mr. Emrys-Evans): I am informed that the entry of this paper into the territories mentioned was originally prohibited by the Resident Commissioners, with the approval of the then High Commissioner, because of articles which had appeared in 1940 calculated to hamper the war effort. Though the views expressed in the paper have in some respects altered since the entry of Russia into the war, the High Commissioner feels that certain of the policies which it advocates are likely to be misunderstood by rural natives and cause unrest during the war. The High Commissioner thought it unnecessary to grant an interview to the Communist Party in South Africa in order to discuss the matter since it could suitably be dealt with by correspondence.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that in general the natives will be more capable of understanding the message in this paper than is the High Commissioner, and will he not use his

influence to get the paper into the hands of the natives?

Mr. Emrys-Evans: No, Sir.

Sir H. Williams: Does the hon. Gentleman make that statement on the ground that the natives cannot read the paper?

HOUSE OF COMMONS' MEMBERS FUND

Mr. Brooke: asked the right hon. and gallant Member for Rye, as representing the Trustees, whether he is aware that the income of the House of Commons Members' Fund, derived from the statutory contributions of hon. Members, is proving to be 10 times as great as the calls on the fund; and whether, in these circumstances, he will obtain an early report from the Government Actuary, as provided under Section 3 of the House of Commons Members' Fund Act?

Colonel Sir George Courthope: I apologise for my absence last week when this Question first appeared on the Paper. An interim report from the Government Actuary was obtained in January, 1943. The actuarial status of the Fund is that the accumulated reserve is not yet sufficient to meet all estimated demands which may be expected in the near future.

Earl Winterton: In view of the fact that this is a domestic issue of some interest at the moment to Members of this House, will my right hon. and gallant Friend consult with the Patronage Secretary with a view to our having an occasional discussion about it, say once every two years? We have not had any opportunity of discussing the management of the Fund or the position since the Act was passed.

Sir G. Courthope: I will certainly consider that.

Brigadier-General Clifton Brown: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend consider raising the minimum limit for giving pensions to people?

Sir G. Courthope: The limits are laid down by the Act under which we are working, and the Fund has not yet been in operation over a General Election. I think it is likely that we may get a great deal of fresh experience after the next General Election.

FIRE GUARD DUTIES (WOMEN)

Major Lloyd: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the date on which it is expected that the new Order respecting the liability of women for fire-watching duties will be issued?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): The recent establishment of close working arrangements between the Fire Guard Service and the National Fire Service has made it necessary to introduce certain changes in the draft Orders. My right hon. Friend hopes, however, that he will be able to sign the Orders next month.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Government Borrowing (Bank Loans)

Mr. Stokes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that £1,500,000,000 new money has been created by the banks since the commencement of the war until the late autumn of 1942; and whether he is in a position to state what it costs to create this money?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): I do not agree with the implication in the first part of the Question, nor do I follow the figure there given. I can only refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave him on 11th May, to which I do not think I can usefully add.

Mr. Stokes: Arising out of that most unsatisfactory reply, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that the figure given in the Question has been computed by a well-known authority on this subject, and if I put another Question down to my right hon. Friend, will he state specifically what he considers the amount of newly-created money to be?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. As I guessed it, the figure had come from Stokes's Encyclopedia of Phrase and Fable. [Laughter.]

Mr. Stokes: This is not a laughing matter. Has my right hon. Friend taken the trouble to assess for himself the amount of newly-created bank money since the war started? Does he not think it is one of his duties as Chancellor of the Exchequer to do so?

Sir K. Wood: I have given my hon. Friend an answer.

Mr. Stokes: But that answer was totally unsatisfactory.

Lend-Lease

Mr. Stokes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that we pay 3 per cent. on £90,819,000 borrowed from the United States of America for war purposes, he proposes to invite the United States of America to borrow a similar amount from us at 3 per cent. to pay for a portion of supplies and services now rendered by us to the United States of America under Lend-Lease or to make other- suitable arrangement to the same effect?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. This would not be in accordance with the Reciprocal Aid Agreement of 3rd September, 1942 (Cmd. 6389).

Mr. Stokes: In view of the fact that probably most of the £90,000,000 mentioned was bogus bank-manufactured money, would it not be at least a gracious thing for the Government of the United States to suspend payment of interest for the duration of the war?

Sir K. Wood: I cannot vary the Agreement.

Post-War International Currency

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the theoretical aggregate of the quotas as defined in the Clearing Union plan, on the assumption that all the United Nations came into the scheme?

Sir K. Wood: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for asking this Question. In the course of the Debate on the Clearing Union Plan I said that this aggregate amounted to £25,000,000,000. I should have said 25,000,000,000 dollars.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer satisfied that even his figure of 25,000,000,000 dollars is correct? Is it in fact the aggregate of the sum of the export and imports of the United Nations, or is it the 75 per cent. of that sum which is suggested as the basis of quotas in the Keynes plan?

Sir K. Wood: Perhaps my right hon. Friend will allow me to consider that question, and I will give him a considered answer.

Old Age Pensions (Computation of Income)

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is his intention to bring the computation of income derived from capital in the case of persons claiming a non-contributory old age pension into line with the proposals relating to supplementary pensions in Clause I of the Pensions and Determination of Needs Bill now before Parliament?

Sir K. Wood: Under the Pensions and Determination of Needs Bill the national income assumed to be derived from capital up to £400 would be substantially the same under both the Supplementary Pensions Scheme and the Non-contributory Old Age Pensions Scheme; beyond this point in the case of Supplementary Pensions capital is regarded as available to meet the applicant's needs. There are, however, respects in which the noncontributory pensioner in possession of capital has advantages over the supplementary pensioner, and assimilation of the two systems would clearly not be of benefit to the non-contributory pensioner.

Mr. Pethiek-Lawrence: Could the right hon. Gentleman explain whether what he is referring to concerns the calculation for the purpose of assessing whether the individual is entitled to a pension under the non-contributory scheme apart from the supplementary pension?

Sir K. Wood: The matter I had in mind which made it clearly not of benefit to the non-contributory pensioner was the absence of the £400 limit which I have referred to in my answer and the special deduction from means not derived from earnings.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it is a little unfair that when a person hopes to get a pension he has first to submit to a calculation based on one set of figures, and that if he gets his pension and then has to apply for supplementary pension, his capital should be taken on an entirely different set of 'considerations?

Sir K. Wood: Yes, Sir, that may be so, but it is to the advantage of the noncontributory pensioner. We shall have an opportunity when the Clause in the Bill comes before us to deal with the matter a little more fully.

Mr. Bowles: Are the Government really going to proceed with the Bill, in view of the large number of abstentions and votes against it?

Sir K. Wood: I thought my hon. Friend was a democrat and believed in majority rule.

Officer Prisoners of War, Italy (Income Tax)

Mr. Turton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether officer prisoners of war imprisoned in Italy are allowed a deduction from their income tax liability in respect of sums deducted from their pay for their maintenance in the prison camps?

Sir K. Wood: In accordance with the normal practice, in the case of serving officers who are abroad, the Service pay, but not the family allowance, of a prisoner of war is assessed to United Kingdom Income Tax, and there is no deduction for amounts spent on maintenance. I understand, however, that in the cases to which my hon. Friend refers a special allowance is credited to the officer's account here towards the expenses on account of maintenance which have to be met from his pay issued in Italy, and this special /allowance, like the family allowance, is not charged to United Kingdom Income Tax.

United States Silver

Mr. Ivor Thomas: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the price of the United States silver to be made available to industry will be fixed by the Government or by the bullion market; and whether the arrangements have the approval of the United States Administration?

Sir K. Wood: The price of U.S. silver to be made available to industry will be fixed by the Treasury. This continues the existing arrangement, and the question of obtaining the approval of the U.S. Administration has not arisen.

PRIVATE BUSINESS (NOTICE TO MEMBERS)

Sir H. Williams: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether you have any statement to make in regard to the publication of notices concerning Private Business?

Mr. Speaker: Yes. I have looked into this matter, and I can now announce that the office clerks in the Vote Office have instructions to draw the attention of Members calling for the Blue Papers to the Private Business sheet on any day when there is one published and on any such day the box containing Private Business sheets will be placed alongside the box for the Blue Papers in the Members' entrance. I hope that these arrangements will be sufficient to keep Members informed of Private Business to be taken in the House on any particular day.

Sir H. Williams: Thank you very much indeed, Sir, for the great trouble you have taken in this matter.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE (USE OF TITLE)

Sir John Graham Kerr: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether your attention has been drawn to instances of the use of the term "Parliamentary Committee" to designate bodies which have not been appointed by either House of Parliament and whose membership is not exclusively reserved to Members of Parliament; and whether, in view of the misleading impression that may be produced by the public use of such a title in those circumstances, you can give some guidance to the House as to the limits within which the. title "Parliamentary Committee" should be used?

Mr. Speaker: The title "Parliamentary Committee" has a technical meaning and can be properly used only by a body appointed by one or both of the Houses of Parliament. Its use by bodies not so appointed is, as the hon. Member says, apt to mislead the public by suggesting that the body has an authority and powers which it does not in fact possess. It ought not to be impossible to find some other term to designate bodies, entirely or partly composed of Members of Parliament but not appointed by Parliament,. which would sufficiently indicate their connection with Parliament without giving rise to misconception. In some cases, "Private Members' Committee" would do; in others, "Parliamentary Group." I think the good sense and ingenuity of Members can be relied on to find a form of designation appropriate to each particular case, once the principle governing the use of the

term "Parliamentary Committee" is pointed out.

Mr. Thorne: Will that Ruling interfere with the committees sometimes set up by local bodies or local authorities? As a rule, at the commencement of the year, they elect what is known as a Parliamentary Committee.

Mr. Speaker: I do not think those terms are so misleading as when they are applied to committees of this House. Those bodies have obviously been appointed by organisations outside, and not by this House, and the general public quite understand. If there is any case of doubt, I should be glad if it could be submitted to me for consideration.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Rear-Admiral Beamish: May I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker? I endeavoured to put down a Private-Notice Question to-day, but I was informed that such a Question was already going to be asked; but it has not been so asked. I should be grateful if you could tell me why it has not been asked. It referred to the intense irritation which has been excited all over the country in consequence of the method proposed for the serving-out of the ration books.

Mr. Speaker: As to why the Question has not been asked, I would point out that in fact three Questions on the subject are down for the next Sitting Day, and that we must not anticipate any Question which has been put down upon the Paper.

Sir William Davison: As I am the Member who handed in the proposed Private Notice Question dealing with the confusion which is arising in connection with ration book distribution, may I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether you realise the difficulty in which Members are now placed by reason of the fact that Questions for the next Sitting Days are not all circulated with the Green Papers which are sent round to Members at the' end of the week? Consequently I had no knowledge that those Questions to which you referred had been sent in on Monday, as they did not appear in the Questions circulated. Members are in a certain amount of difficulty in not being aware that such Questions have been put down, as there is no notice of that fact in the Green Papers.

Mr. Speaker: I quite understand the hon. Member's position, and I am not imputing any blame to him. I am only pointing out that his Question could not be allowed, as no doubt the other Questions will be asked and answered upon the next Sitting Day.

Sir W. Davison: When I was informed that those Questions had been put down, I quite understood the position, and I accept it. I understood at once that my proposed Private Notice Question could not be accepted. I would, however, point out that in the old days a Paper used to be circulated to us showing what Questions there were for the days immediately following. Now we do not know anything about them until we get to the House and see the White Order Paper.

DISPOSAL AND CUSTODY OF DOCUMENTS

Ordered, That the First and Second Reports of the Select Committee on the Disposal and Custody of Documents in the last Session of Parliament be referred to the Select Committee on the Disposal and Custody of Documents.—[Sir Percy Harris.]

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

Ordered, That a Message be sent to the Lords to request that their Lordships will be pleased to give leave to the Earl of Drogheda, C.M.G., to attend to be examined as a witness before the Committee on Public Accounts.—[Sir Assheton Pownall.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): I beg to move,
That the proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).
There are a number of Amendments on the Paper to the Town and Country Planning Bill. We are proposing this Motion simply as a precautionary measure, and I hope it will not be necessary for the House to sit late.

Question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair.]

SUPPLEMENTARY VOTE OF CREDIT, 1943

EXPENDITURE ARISING OUT OF THE WAR

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,000,000,000, be granted to His Majesty. towards defraying the expenses which may be incurred during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1944, for general Navy, Army and Air services and supplies in so far as specific provision is not made therefor by Parliament; for securing the public safety, the defence of the realm, the maintenance of public order and the efficient prosecution of the war; for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community; and generally for all expenses beyond those provided for in the ordinary Grants of Parliament arising out of the existence of a state of war.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): I would like first to take this opportunity of referring to the passing of the new Mutual Aid Act of the Canadian Government, to which my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister referred in a message which he has recently sent to Mr. Mackenzie King. It is, I need hardly say, and as I will explain a little later, material to this Vote of Credit. This is the first Sitting of the House since the Bill received the Royal Assent and became law, and I am sure that the Committee would not wish this moment to pass without testifying once again the high appreciation of this House, on behalf of all our people, of this further


measure of Canada's magnificent assistance to us and to all our friends and Allies united in the common cause. This new contribution on Canada's part makes a substantial difference to the sums which v5e are called upon to find from our own resources for the prosecution of the war. The action which Canada has now taken goes far beyond even the generous gift of 1,000,000,000 dollars in money which Canada gave this country last year. It represents the acceptance by Canada of new financial liabilities of a very large order; it will enable the United Kingdom and other United Nations, which lack Canadian dollars to obtain from Canada the war supplies they need; and it will do this without the accumulation of those war debts between nations which we so much wish to avoid. I feel sure that the Committee will join with me in expressing our gratitude and admiration for these magnanimous and far-reaching measures.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Sir K. Wood: I have to ask the Committee for a further Vote of Credit to meet expenditure on the war. In view of the close proximity of the Budget and the Finance Bill Debates on our general financial policy, I propose to confine my remarks to-day to a very few facts about our Vote of Credit expenditure. The original Vote of 1,000,000,000 for the financial year 1943, passed by the Committee on 26th January last, is likely to be exhausted in 'the early part of next month, and I accordingly now ask for a further sum of £1,000,000,000, which, on the basis of such estimates of the probable rate of expenditure as can be made at present, should suffice to cover expenditure on war services up to about the month.of August, before which time I shall doubtless have to approach the Committee again. When I addressed the Committee in January I explained that our expenditure on war services was then at the rate of about £14,000,000 a day, which figure included £11,000,000 a day on the Fighting and Supply Services. Before the end of the financial year these figures had risen tai something like £15,000,001 and £11,500,000 respectively.
In the present financial year the amounts of the Votes of Credit will be affected by the different arrangement made by the Government of Canada with regard to the generous measure of assist

ance which, as I have explained just now, Canada is again giving us. Last year the gift of a billion dollars was a money receipt in our Revenue accounts, and all our expenditure in Canada was included in the charge to the Votes of Credit. This year the Canadian Government are making provision of essential war supplies in kind, and in addition are accepting direct financial liability for the cost of the Royal Canadian Air Force personnel serving overseas, as well as purchasing for cash certain capital assets concerned with production in Canada. Thus, considerably less provision is required in our Votes of Credit for expenditure in Canada, and no provision is required for the Canadian air personnel overseas. ' The effect of these changes is to reduce the totals of the Vote of Credit expenditure below what would otherwise have been necessary. In the new financial year the rate of Vote of Credit expenditure has not so far been affected by the arrangements for Canadian supplies in kind or for meeting the cost of Canadian air personnel, but the net expenditure has been, reduced in recent weeks by the Canadian Government's purchase of the assets to which I have referred. The result is that the average rate of expenditure in the seven or eight weeks since the, beginning of the financial year cannot be regarded as an index of the prospective rate of expenditure over the financial year as a whole.
The rate during this period has in fact been about £13,500,000 a day, of which about £11,000,000 a day has been on the Fighting and Supply Services. But lest anyone should be tempted, despite the special temporary factors I have mentioned, to look on the somewhat lower figures as reflecting some slackening in our war effort, let me remind the Committee that the total Vote of Credit expenditure for which I have 'budgeted in the present financial year is £4,900,000,000. To bring that figure on to a basis comparable with. the Vote of Credit expenditure last year, we must add last year's Canadian Government contribution of £225,000,000, the cost of the Canadian air personnel which we have previously borne, and the amounts which we are receiving in return for the transferred capital assets. Further, as the Committee will remember, the Vote of Credit estimate makes only nominal provision for war damage, whereas the payments actually made were included in last year's Vote of Credit expenditure.


Since the realised total of the Vote of Credit expenditure last year was only £4,840,000,000, the Committee will see that this year's Vote of Credit represents a substantially larger provision for the war than last year. As far as actual expenditure in the current financial year is concerned, the position is that at the moment, in view of the new arrangements with Canada which T have just described, we have no common basis of comparison with the daily rate of war expenditure in any previous period. But by the time I have to ask the Committee for the next Vote of Credit I may be able to give some further information of the trend of our current expenditure on the new basis. I would therefore ask the Committee to grant me this further Vote in the hope that I expect I shall be able to give some further particulars on the next occasion.

Mr. Barnes: The Committee will readily—

Mr. Stokes: On a point of order. Might I ask whether we are now passing from consideration of this Measure?

The Deputy-Chairman: No.

Mr. Barnes: The first thing I should like to do is to associate this side of the Committee with the acknowledgment which the Chancellor has, rightly, made of the magnificent gesture by Canada. I do not think that even on the last occasion we fully appreciated the range and magnitude of this form of assistance. It is only right that those who speak for Parliament and for the British people should recognise it.
I desire to take the opportunity of this new Vote of Credit, which Parliament will no doubt readily grant, to raise one matter. The facility with which the Chancellor has hitherto got his Votes of Credit indicates a general endorsement of his policy. I want now to discuss a phase of our 'financial policy, namely, the stabilisation of prices. I make no apology for doing so, because the Chancellor himself emphasised in his Budget Statement the importance of the matter. He said:
In the forefront of the measures which we have taken during the war to remove the threat of inflation is cur policy of stabilisation of prices. It has wide significance, and it involves a considerable annual charge upon the Exchequer. In my Budget speech of April, 1941, I undertook to hold the cost-of-living index number, apart from minor seasonal

changes, within the range of 125 to 130 in term: of the pre-war level. That endeavour has been rewarded with a full measure of success."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th April, 1943; col. 952, Vol. 388.]
That applies to the stabilisation of food prices. I think the Chancellor can claim a full measure of success for that policy. In the Debate on the Ministry of Food Estimates the other day, I expressed appreciation of the value of the food subsidies, pointing out the immense and favourable repercussions that that policy was having on the whole of our war effort. I reminded the Committee that a pound each of six primary commodities, butter, margarine, lard, bacon, cheese, and sugar, cost 7s. 11¾ld. in 1917, and only 6s. 2d. in May, 1943, showing a total saving of Is. 9¾c1. on a pound of each of these six commodities alone. That is an outstanding justification for subsidising as a method of controlling food prices. In this policy of stabilisation, however, it is not possible to follow the method Of subsidy to any extensive degree, although with regard to basic food supplies, it is, in my view, quite unsound in war time for the Government to follow other methods.
Later we see a further working-out of this policy in the development of utility lines. I submit that the Government policy has not been pursued with the same vigour, and has not met with the same success, in regard to general price and commodity controls as it has in. the case of subsidies. I would press for an extension of the policy of developing utility lines. While the retail index is suitable for food, it is not, in my view, fool-proof in respect of the general range of goods. I do not say at this stage that the Chancellor has been inaccurate, but I want to query a subsequent statement of his, that,
apart from price increases deliberately brought about. by higher indirect taxes, the whole volume of consumption goods and services, including luxury goods and other non-necessaries, has not risen in price by more than 36 per cent."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 12th April, 1943; col. 952, Vol. 388.]
Everyday experience does not bear out that statistical assertion. It is ail very well to use statistics, but the average housewife could proceed, and rightly, from her own experience. Let me state the price of clothing. I want the Chancellor, if he will, to note these figures. By 1st January, 1942, the price and general index figure of clothing had reached 93 per


cent. above that for 1st September, 1939. The policy of utility lines was developed by the Government three years after the war started. That shows how slowly the stabilisation policy has been followed, in this direction, in contrast to the promptitude with which subsidies were _applied. It is interesting to note that it was not until utility lines were introduced that the general level of clothing prices began to fall. Now they have declined to 70 per cent. above September, 1939. If you take the other general lines of consumption goods, they were 30 per cent. above September, 1939, on 1st January, 1942, and they are now 50 per cent: above. This is the real issue that the country has to face in regard to this problem of stabilisation. Stabilising food prices at 20 per cent. above those for September, 1939, permits of a continuation of that figure after the war. If one reflects, one can see the immense advantage of stabilising food prices at their present levels, in framing our post-war agricultural policy, if we do not have to pass through a period of deflation with regard to food supplies.
When we turn from food supplies to general consumer goods, the point here that I desire to make is that the importance—I really wish that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not be absorbed while I am presenting an argument of some substance—of this general range of consumer goods is reflected in respect that it is to' this class of goods coming into normal manufacture that we shall look for the absorption of a considerable proportion of our demobilised labour from the Services, the Civil Defence services and from war production. If the prices of this general range of goods are higher than is necessary—and I claim that 78 per cent. is too high for a certain range of goods, and I shall point out that others are still higher—just at the time when we want stability of prices to develop maximum production, we shall have uncertainty if we have to face a deflation period. The Government are the largest buyers of goods in this country to-day, and therefore we need to keep prices stable, because it is of advantage in our current war expenditure. If we get an accumulative advantage from the stabilisation of prices in war-time, it will give us security and stabilisation when we move from war to peace production.
I have already asserted that, in my view, the prices of clothing and general merchandise have been allowed to reach too high a level. There are statistics, but I want to quote some figures taken by an Oxford test—the Oxford Bulletin of Statistics—to show that, when one applies a test to retail establishments, the figures are much higher than the percentages which I have given, and which again are double those of the Chancellor. This test carried out in Oxford, taking the figure of 100 per cent., in 1938, showed that clothing and footwear had reached 168 per cent. in 1943, furniture 250 per cent., household textiles 265 per cent., hardware and household stores 185 per cent., leather and travel goods 185 per cent., fancy goods 185 per cent., and drugs and toilet goods 156 per cent.

Sir Percy Hurd (Devizes): Can the hon. Gentleman help us by giving the range of that test?

Mr. Barnes: The goods there cover practically every form of domestic, household and furnishing equipment.

Sir P. Hurd: Over what area?

Mr. Barnes: It is taken in Oxford, but it is no use suggesting that Oxford is not a sound test in this respect, because I am prepared to give another test. Here is an interesting comparison of prices made by the Council for Art and Industry. In 1937 it gave the cost of completely equipping a working-class home, and the estimate for 1936 was £52 10S. 4d. If you took that same range of goods for equipping the same type of house in 1942, it would cost £167 11S. 10d. If you took off the Purchase Tax in that range of goods, it would mean a reduction of £31 3s. 2d., leaving the comparative cost in 1942 £136 8s. 8d. as against £52 10s. 4d. before the war. If you take the ordinary simple daily test and you try to buy a tin kettle to-day which used to cost 6½d. and 10½d. for a two or four pint kettle respectively, you will have to pay 1S. 7d., 1S. 9d., or 2s. or 2s. 6d—you find the prices vary very considerably in different shops. If you take the ordinary scrubbing brush which the housewife uses in her home for which she used to pay 8½d. or 10d., she will now have to pay 1s. 11d., 25. or 2s. 6d. My contention is that there is no similar control of prices; that the machinery of price


control on this range of goods is not working as effectively as it might do. The interesting thing is that, if you study this very wide range of goods, the introduction of the utility lines marks the first occasion upon which the general rise of prices was arrested.
The introduction of utility lines is having the same effect on this range of goods as the subsidy on the basic lines of food. Directly we follow the policy of subsidising the major basic food items it exercises the same influence on the whole range of food supplies, although the whole range is not subject to the subsidy policy. Since utility lines have been introduced the same influence has been observable with regard to dry goods and hardware and similar things. That is a definite advantage. I am not inexperienced enough to suggest to the Chancellor that the utility principle could be introduced over the whole of this very wide range of goods, but it could be extended much more than it has been. The whole policy was 'too slow; prices were allowed to rise to a high artificial level before it was introduced. We already have the evidence that after a few lines had been covered, it exercised a moderating and declining influence on prices. Therefore, before I leave this' subject, I want to urge upon the consideration of the Chancellor, who fully accepts the policy of stabilisation and has stated that to be his policy, the need for the picking-out of a number of additional articles that exercise a good influence on prices generally and the extension of utility lines to cover the position as much as possible.

Sir John Wardlaw-Milne (Kidderminster): Is it not the case that prices of unrationed or uncontrolled goods have risen very largely owing to the scarcity of labour? How is it possible to control the prices of these goods unless by a complete Order of control and unless at the same time we either supply labour or control prices?

Mr. Barnes: There is price control running through all these articles, hut it is impossible, in view of the present position, to exercise proper supervision over these prices. Therefore when one is faced with a situation of that character it is desirable to look to experience to see what factors operate normally in all industry to hold prices to a reasonable

figure. When one observes this factor and discovers that the subsidy in respect of certain basic food supplies has had a more arresting influence than your general price legislation, and when you find that since utility lines have been introduced the tendency of prices for this range of goods has been to remain stable, and to some extent to decline, whereas previously they had been steadily mounting, it is worth while Parliament giving attention to these matters in so far as we cannot hope to establish an extensive inspectorate to see that breaches of price regulations are not taking place.
The third phase of policy on which, it appears to me, the Government are depending to secure some form of stabilisation is the exercise of the machinery of their commodity control. As regards the general distribution of goods, we have subsidies, utility production and price control. When it comes to the more important materials of industry the Government fall back on their commodity control machinery. I put this definite point to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Do the Treasury and the Government suggest that their own commodity control as regards both the acquisition and the pricing of material, the machinery with which they operate prices and releases to the trade, is working efficiently? It is very difficult to justify the prices of materials released by some of the commodity controls.
I take timber as an illustration, and I can give only one illustration, because I understand there is a desire that this,Debate should not occupy too much time. The price of super beech in 1938 was 3½, a foot. The price fixed by the Timber Control is 9⅝d. an increase of 175 per cent. The question of the difficulty of importation has, in my view, nothing to do with it. We are doing without the timber that we cannot import, and I submit that there is no justification for an increase in price of this description. Super American oak was 4d. a foot in 1938, and the control price is 1s. 1⁝d. Admittedly this has to be brought from America. but surely there are international arrangements by which space can be found for cargoes which are necessary, and if a cargo is necessary, it is not desirable that prices should be increased to such an extent. A standard of deal in 1938 cost £16 15s. The price fixed by the Timber Control is £47 7s. 6d., an in-


crease of 182 per cent. Birch ply in 1938 was 7s., and the price fixed by the Timber Control is 34s. to 36s., an increase of 385 per cent.
Here we have a Government machine which ought to be able to exercise complete control over prices, apart from any natural or inevitable increases resulting from the war. Follow the effect of this through industry. It is impossible to get timber to-day except for essential work. Nearly all of it goes on Government account, and therefore increases of this kind permitted by the Timber Control are added to the cost at every stage of production. In the case of utility furniture, for instance, you are faced with the position that the timber must come from the Timber Control; the wholesaler has his margin, and the retailers have their margin, and if you start off with a highly priced raw material, your wholesale proportion, your manufacturing proportion, your retail proportion are subject to the cumulative effect.
Therefore, I submit that from the standpoint of national economy, and having regard to post-war reconstruction, the policy which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has stated to be the official policy of the Government, namely, stabilisation of prices, is not being pursued as thoroughly or as efficiently as it could be. I have raised this discussion for the purpose of getting over one or two points in that connection. I regret that I have had to do so rather hurriedly and that I have not had time to support my remarks by the evidence which I should otherwise have wished to bring forward. I have however curtailed my remarks to meet the convenience of the right hon. Gentleman, and I hope that he, in return, will re-emphasise his policy and give an assurance that it will be pursued more vigorously and more efficiently in the future.

Mr. Graham White: My hon. Friend the Member for East Ham South (Mr. Barnes) will forgive me if I refrain from making any comments upon the interesting and important argument which he has just presented to the Committee. We are now in the midst of the discussions on our financial arrangements for the year, and you, Mr. Williams, have already been good enough to afford me an opportunity of speaking

on some aspects of our financial position, and I would not have intervened on this occasion did I not feel bound, in few but none the less sincere words, to associate my hon. and right hon. Friends who sit on these benches with what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said regarding the passage of the Mutual Aid Act through the Canadian Parliament. This is indeed a remarkable action by the Canadian Legislature. The conception of Lend-Lease which owes so much to President Roosevelt, and now this great act by the Canadian nation, which will be of the utmost practical value to us, seem to me to indicate the opening of a new era in international finance.
We have reached a stage in the war when it is our duty to devote such time and attention as we can divert from the immediate prosecution of the war, to the consideration of the arrangements to be made after the war. We want to ensure the continuance, in the difficult financial times which will follow the war, of that unity of purpose which is to-day bringing us steadily nearer victory over our enemies. It is not the actual size or magnificence of this transaction, great as it is, which is most remarkable. I think- the most remarkable thing about it is that it should have been done at all. As I say, it is the indication of a new era, and I rejoice that it should be so. The financial and economic transactions of Lend-Lease and the Mutual Aid Act which our Canadian brethren have passed are signs of that higher standard of conduct in international finance which we shall have to maintain if the world is to be made a place fit for human habitation.

Mr. Stokes: At' the outset, may I briefly associate myself with what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for East Birkenhead {Mr. Graham White) about the action of the Canadian Government? I only hope that they are not as misled as the Chancellor of the Exchequer is, by the bogus money which is being created, and it is in order to make a protest on that particular aspect of this Vote of Credit that I rise to address the Committee. It is not because I am annoyed with my right hon. Friend for his quips at me during Question time. I can take it, and I may add that I think I can, on this occasion, return it with interest. But I am bound to make this remark to my right hon. Friend, that


from the studied expressions of amusement which I observed in the Gallery at the side it seemed to me that some of his supplementary retorts were inspired, and I desire first to make a protest on a particular point—one which I have made before. I greatly regret, as I am sure other hon. and right hon. Gentlemen also regret, the ever-increasing habit of Ministers reading their speeches, and I look forward to the day when I shall be able to send my right hon. Friend a bouquet—

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member has already wandered round at least two subjects which are out of Order. I hope he will now proceed to deal with the Vote of Credit.

Mr. Stokes: I want to move the rejection of this Vote of Credit, and I want the Committee to be fully apprised of why I take that view. I do not want the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be too much hurt by what I say, and I was merely remarking that I would like to be able to send him a bouquet, if and when he gives me occasion to do so. There seems to me to be no sense whatever in voting money to a Government when it would appear that the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not know where his money is coming from.

The Deputy-Chairman: We cannot discuss on this occasion where the money comes from.

Mr. Stokes: I am not discussing where it actually comes from, but I am contending that the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not know where it comes from.

The Deputy-Chairman: We cannot discuss whether the right hon. Gentleman knows or does not know where it comes from.

Mr. Stokes: It is surely in Order when we are discussing a Vote of Credit for £1,000,000,000 to point out that the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not really know what the money is. I put that to the Chancellor—as I have done on previous occasions when he has not seen fit to answer me, not because his Department did not know, but because they.did not want to tell the truth£that he, as the responsible authority, should tell the House how much of the money he borrows is bank-created money.

The Deputy-Chairman: That is just the point we cannot discuss just now; we can only discuss how the money is spent.

Mr. Stokes: I do not know quite how to put this, but my point is that the Chancellor does not know what money is. However, I suppose I shall have to sit down without developing my argument and reserve my words of wisdom for a future occasion [Laughter]. It is all very well for the Chancellor to laugh. My historical recollection is that Departments only do that when they are in a jam—

The Deputy-Chairman: If the hon. Member does not know how to put his case, that is no reason for giving a general lecture on matters which have nothing to do with this Vote of Credit.

Mr. Stokes: Then I must conclude my remarks. It seems to me a matter of concern that this Committee should be asked to vote £1,000,000,000 when the Chancellor does not know what money is. Perhaps I may emphasise this point. We have heard a great deal lately about unconditional surrender. I want to say to the Chancellor that unless he achieves unconditional surrender of privately controlled money power, we shall never get the peace we want.

Sir K. Wood: I think I had better pass over the speech of the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) in case I, too, am ruled out of Order. First of all, I would like to thank the Committee for the references they have made to our financial administration. In particular, I appreciate the observations of the hon. Member for East Ham South (Mr. Barnes). I would not have expected the Committee to do otherwise than associate itself with my remarks concerning the generous help we have had from our Canadian friends. I have no doubt that reports of this Debate will appear in Canada, so that our friends there can see how much we appreciate what they have done and are doing. I wish the hon. Member for East Ham South had had a little more time to develop the case he put forward, because he is an authority on that subject, which is one well worth our deliberation and consideration. He did, however, have time to put forward some part of his case to-day, and while in view of our other Business I do not wish to trespass on the time of the Committee, I would


like to make one or two observations on what he said and to tell him that I will carefully study the points he has raised and communicate with him later, if I may.
I would like to give some explanation to the Committee about the figure of 36 per cent. which is in the White Paper. That figure relates to the average increase in aggregate retail prices which has taken place since the outbreak of war, excluding the effects of indirect taxes and subsidies. The figure is an average for the calendar year 1942, during which period the average of the Ministry of Labour's cost-of-living index was 29 per cent. above pre-war level. I want to make it quite clear why these two figures are different. The reason is, as was pointed out in the White Paper, that the two figures measure different things. The cost-of-living index measures the increase in the cost of buying a fixed collection of goods, based on samples of working-class consumption, and for the most part this collection of goods consists of what may be termed the necessities of life. The figure in the White Paper covers all classes of goods, not by any means confined to necessities, and relates to practically the whole of the aggregate personal expenditure of the community; it is not confined to any particular budget of consumption.
In addition to this difference in the basis of comparison, the White Paper excludes the effects of indirect taxation and subsidies, the result being to give an indication of the aggregate movement of retail prices which has taken place apart from the deliberate action of Government policy in the spheres of taxation and subsidies. The stabilisation policy, which operates by means of subsidies, has, of course, been to a large extent concentrated in the field of the most essential goods, with which the cost-of-living index figure is chiefly concerned. I think the hon. Member for East Ham South will agree that that was the right thing to do and a good concentration to take. Naturally, the cost-of-living index, which reflects the stabilisation and subsidy policy, shows a lower price increase since the beginning of the war than the White Paper figure, which has regard to the total collection of all -L-Asses of consumption over the community as a whole. As I said in my Budget speech, I think that when regard

is paid to these factors the rise of 36 per cent. over the whole field, apart from taxes and subsidies, is in an appropriate relationship 'co the cost-of-living index. The hon. Member, with his usual fairness, expressed appreciation of the Government's policy in the field of foodstuffs, but he said that he did not think that we had been so successful in another class of goods, particularly those which come within the sphere of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. It is quite true that food prices have risen less than those of most other goods and services, but we must not forget rents, which have not risen at all.
I am quite ready to admit that when the Government first embarked on the great new experiment of our stabilisation policy two years ago we concentrated our efforts at first in the field of food, and I do not think anybody will quarrel on that account. Quite clearly the first and most important thing to do was to try and stabilise the prices of those staple articles of food which appear week by week on every housewife's shopping list and on which there must be steady, uninterrupted, weekly expenditure. Nevertheless, since then a great deal has been done to extend the stabilisation policy over an even wider field. I will give these instances. Clothing prices have now been successfully stabilised and in the case of utility clothing have even been reduced. I think everyone has praise for the exceedingly good value for money represented by utility clothes for which the President of the Board of Trade is responsible, and which he has done so much to make successful. Of course, this has been assisted by the exemption of utility clothes from Purchase Tax, and this has been followed by similar exemptions in respect, first, of utility furniture and now, as I announced in my Budget speech, of the various forms of household textiles. Some 80 per cent. of all the clothing that is now produced is utility clothing and is thus exempt from tax. In the case of furniture 100 per cent. of current production, excepting only certain old stocks now being worked off, is utility furniture and is also exempt from Purchase Tax. When you take this very wide range of things—food, clothing, furniture and so on, I think we have gone a very long way to meet the objects my hon. Friend has in mind by means of a properly co-ordinated policy of stabilisation and price control, coupled


with the exemptions from Purchase Tax in relation to the various classes that I have mentioned. I will take note of what the hon. Member has said and carefully study the suggestions he has made and, if necessary, confer with the President of the Board of Trade concerning them. I hope he will feel that, taking the policy as a whole, and all that we have done during the year. there is a substantial amount to the credit of the policy introduced some time ago. I regard this as one of the main features of our finance introduced during the war. It is true that it is costing a large sum of money—£180,000,000—but I think it has met with a full measure of success and has certainly done a great deal to help the great body of people, particularly those with small fixed incomes, whose case must be very much in our mind at present.

Mr. Barnes: What about the Timber Control?

Sir K. Wood: Yes, I will look into that. I thank the hon. Member for his useful and informative speech, and I will certainly take into account all that he has said and study it.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:

"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,000,000,000, be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the expenses which may be incurred during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1944, for general Navy, Army and Air services and supplies in so far as specific provision is not made therefor by Parliament; for securing the public safety, the defence of the realm, the maintenance of public order and the efficient prosecution of the war; for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community; and generally for all expenses, beyond those provided for in the ordinary Grants of Parliament, arising out of the existence of a state of war."

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day; Committee to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

WAYS AND MEANS

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair.]

Resolved:

"That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1944, the sum of £1,000,000,000 be granted out C the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—[Sir Kingsley Wood.]

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day; Committee to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (INTERIM DEVELOPMENT) BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS in the Chair.]

CLAUSEI—(Application of planning resolutions to land not already subject to planning schemes or resolutions.)

Mr. Collindridge (Barnsley): I beg to move, in page 1, to leave out lines 15 to 21.
Under the existing law as contained in Section 10 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1932, provision is made in regard to the interim development of land within an area to which a resolution to adopt a planning scheme applied and that Section gives some but not sufficient control to the planning authorities in regard to developments that may take place prior to the actual making of a planning scheme. The defect in the Section is that a person can still develop land notwithstanding the planning authority's refusal of consent if he is prepared to risk the inclusion in the scheme as eventually made of a provision depriving him of compensation in respect of the building which has been erected contrary to the development. It is suggested that no serious hardship is experienced by landowners by reason of the interim control of development given by Section 1o, as all decisions of the planning authority may be the subject of an appeal to the Ministry of Health. The purpose of this Clause 1 (1) of the Bill is to bring those parts of the country which are not already the subject of a town planning.resolution within the scope of the interim development control, and it provides that areas in which a town planning resolution is not already in force shall be deemed to be subject to such a resolution, that is,
that it shall be deemed to have been duly passed by the local authority for the district in which the land is situated.
These words, of course, mean the local authority by virtue of the provisions of the Act, namely, as respects the City of London the Common Council of that City, as respects the County of London the


London County Council, and elsewhere the councils of county boroughs and county districts. The expression "county districts" means urban rural districts and non-county boroughs. We put this Amendment forward largely on behalf of the Urban District Councils Association, whose view is that interim development control should be exercised by the local authority as defined and that it should not be open to the Minister to make an order transferring the responsibility to another local authority or to a county council or to a joint committee. There is no provision in the Act of 1932 for a compulsory transfer of this kind. There are provisions for voluntary transfer, and* it is difficult to see why the Minister should wish that different provisions should be applicable to the interim control which is exercisable under the Bill.
Under Section 2 (2) of the Act, the council of a county district may at any time by agreement relinquish in favour of the county council any of their powers or duties under the Act. There have been many cases of relinquishment of this kind. Under Section 3 two or more local authorities may appoint a joint committee for the purpose of acting jointly in the preparation or adoption of a scheme, and they may delegate to that committee any powers under the Act other than the power of borrowing money or levying a rate. Again, under Section 4, the Minister, where it appears to be expedient that two or more local authorities should act jointly in the preparation or adoption of a scheme, may, at the request of one or more of them, by order provide for the continuance of a joint committee for that purpose. We propose largely that those things should be continued. We feel that in this proviso you are taking away the voluntary association of various councils with the desired object in View. It cannot be said to be in the nature of a default power, as the local authority could not be said to be in default merely because Clause i operates in regard to land which has not already been the subject of a standing resolution. If it should be suggested that the proviso is only operative where there is something in the nature of default, the answer is that these powers are already contained in Section 36 of the Act of 1932. The omission of the proviso has already been proposed to the Minister by the Urban District Councils Association. The

Ministry, while not replying to the Urban District Councils Association, has sent a letter to another association, and if that were made applicable generally, it would be accepted. The Ministry wrote:
As you are aware planning powers in respect of areas which have already been planned have in some cases been relinquished under Section 2 (2) and 3 (1) of the Act of 1932 to the county council or delegated to a joint committee, and in others are being exercised by a neighbouring authority. In such cases it may be convenient that a new area coming under planning for the first time under the provisions of the sub-section should also be planned by the county council or the joint committee or other authority as the case may be. The only object of the proviso is to enable the Minister by order to give a direction accordingly.
If such an assurance embodied in those words could be put into the Bill, the Urban District Councils Association would be satisfied, but without it the proviso is wide enough to permit of an Order being made by the Minister transferring the power to an entirely different local authority in respect of a part of the district, although in the rest of the district the existing powers are being discharged by the local authority itself. While I am ready to admit that present conditions may warrant any great interference with the Minister having new powers, we should endeavour to get as much local agreement as possible. I therefore move this Amendment and ask the Minister for some assurance on the matter.

Mr. Man (Peckham): I hope that the Minister will not be carried away by the eloquence of my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment. If I have any criticism of the words which my hon. Friend desires to delete, it is that they are of too limited a character. They apply only to areas or parts of areas where no resolution has been passed, and the Minister has to exercise his power before the expiration of the three months from the passing of the Bill.

The Deputy-Chairman: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to discuss, with this Amendment, the Amendment which stands in his name, in page 1, line 15, after "may" to insert:
after consultation with the local authority for the district in which the land proposed to be specified is situated.
or would he wish to discuss it separately? It might be convenient if we discussed both together.

Mr. Silkin: I think that would be convenient. The real criticism of town planning areas at the present time is that they are far too small. I had hoped that in this Bill my right hon. Friend would have done something about the reorganisation of local government, at any rate from a town planning point of view. If he were not able to do that—and possibly it is asking a great deal to reorganise local government in a town planning measure—I would have liked him to take far greater powers to amalgamate areas or to substitute areas one for another for town planning purposes than he has done. May I quote the example of the Metropolitan traffic area? In that area there are 117 town planning authorities. One can well imagine the kind of patchwork of planning which one could expect if each authority were to prepare a scheme for itself based entirely on its own needs, or what it regards as its own needs, regardless of conditions outside. I regard this proviso as the bare minimum which the Minister ought to be empowered to carryout. If I may refer to my Amendment, before the Minister brushed any local authority on one side he ought at least, as a matter of courtesy, consult it and give reasons why in his view it would be better for some other local authority to carry out its functions. I do not object to the principle. All I suggest is that the Minister, as I am sure my right hon. Friend would wish to do, should pay the local authority the courtesy of consulting it before he takes any action.

Mr. Hutchinson (Ilford): The proviso to Sub-section (1) has certainly been drawn in very wide terms and it has aroused among planning authorities a certain amount of apprehension. I understand that my right hon. Friend's purpose is to exercise the powers which the proviso gives him only in those cases where there has already been a relinquishment of planning powers either to a joint committee or to a county council. The apprehensions which the proviso has aroused 'in certain quarters would be allayed if my right hon. Friend could assure us that it is his intention to exercise the powers which the proviso gives him in that way and not to use them for the purpose of transferring the interim development powers to a new authority in cases where there has not been any relinquishment to a joint committee or a county council.

The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. W. S. Morrison): Let me first allay any suspicions that may naturally enough arise from the words of the proviso that it is the Minister's intention to exercise his powers by transferring to strange authorities powers which normally ought to reside in the locality. If the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Collindridge) will look at Sub-section (1) he will see that the notional resolution which is necessary to bring the whole of the country under a planning resolution is deemed to have been duly passed by the local authority for the district in which the land is situated. As he told us correctly, under the 1932 Act there have been changes from the position where each local authority planned its own land. There have been reliramishments, there have been joint committees, and so on. It may happen that when Clause 1 becomes operative a small section hitherto not subject to a resolution, situated it may be in the very middle of the area which has joined up for joint action, will, if we have not the proviso, be its own authority for planning. It would be undesirable within an area of that character to have a division of planning functions-between one large body which has voluntarily come together or is the result of a voluntary relinquishment and another authority holding a small place in the middle of the area; and that there should be no powers on the part of the Minister to tidy up the position and make an effective planning body governing the whole of the land in question.
It is for that purpose and no other that the proviso exists. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept my assurance on that matter. It is necessary in the case of those areas brought under a notional resolution to tidy them up and to secure that there is one authority which will function in an efficient manner for the whole area. I do not anticipate that the areas which are now brought for the first time under planning will feel any reluctance at the proviso. If I were suddenly confronted as an administrator of local government with the task which would be imposed on me, I would welcome inclusion in an area which is already provided with planning powers, and I anticipate no trouble in this provision being accepted. I thoroughly agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) that it would be


wrong for the Minister of Town and Country Planning to make these alterations in authorities without the fullest consultation with the authorities concerned. It is not only a question of courtesy, although that is involved. I hope that courtesy will always be a feature of our administration in this country and that those who take upon themselves the burden of public affairs, whether locally or at the centre, will always treat each other with the greatest amount of respect.
Apart from that, there is involved a sound administrative point. A Minister of Town and County Planning who attempted to carve up areas without consultation would not only be extremely discourteous but very foolish, because he would be depriving himself of that local knowledge which is essential if planning is to be effective and popular. I hope, however, that the hon. Gentleman will not press the Amendment for this reason. Consultation is a piece of administration and a Minister would be foolish if he did not indulge in it to the full, but the place to check errors in administration is Parliament where the Minister is subject to scrutiny by his fellow members. It is one thing for the. Minister to be obliged to consult by rules of good administration and Parliamentary criticism, and it is another thing for him to be subjected on the matter of consultation to the jurisdiction of the law courts. If we alter the Statute and put these words into it, it opens the door for people to ask: "Did you actually consult before you made the Order?" Possibly years after, when a local authority in good faith has made orders affecting property rights, some cantankerous individual might come along and say that everybody had not been consulted to the full and, therefore, the Order was ultra vires.I am not anxious to avoid the fact of consultation, but I want to avoid cluttering up the Statute Book with possible rocks of offence for the future. The word "consultation" itself is extremely vague in its import. We know what it means, but what degree of consultation is necessary for it to be effective in the words of the Statute? If a Minister likes to be high-handed it could be the most perfunctory consultation, and that would be no safeguard. Nothing but good administration can secure that. I give the assurance, on the one hand, to

the hon. Member for Barnsley, of what the proviso is intended to accomplish, and on the other, to the hon. Member for Peckham that the fullest consultation will be necessary and will be carried out. I hope, therefore, that they will not think it necessary to press their Amendments.

Mr. Collindridge: I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Silkin: I shall have pleasure in withdrawing my Amendment, but I would like to tell my right hon. Friend that the 1932 Act is full of references to consultation, and I hope he will have a look at it.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: It is a bad precedent.

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Gentleman did not actually propose his Amendment. Perhaps he will formally move it, so that it can be withdrawn.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page line 15, after "may," to insert:
after consultation with the local authority for the district in which the land proposed to be specified is situated.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Bossom: I beg to move, in page 2, line 3, at the end, to add:
(3) There shall be set aside around all towns and cities of fifty thousand or more inhabitants a strip of land approximately five miles wide to form a green belt and, within three months of the passing of this Act, this shall be considered as subject to planning resolution and no new development or building schemes shall be planned for future construction within this space without the consent of the Minister.
This is rather a drastic Amendment, but I would point out that all the land in this Island of ours can be administered at the Minister's discretion three months after the passing of this Measure under an interim development Order. The position as to the use of land is rather vague, and I think it is most desirable that the use of the land be more definite, and this Amendment sets out that areas five miles wide around towns and cities with a population of 50,000 and over should be reserved as a green belt. The Minister may wish to vary the width to four or six miles, but I have thought it right to bring the matter forward in order that local authorities should have some knowledge of where


they can undertake developments. Both the Ministry of Health and the former Minister of Works and Planning have called upon local authorities to plan boldly, but it will be difficult to plan boldly until they are sure how land can be used. Local authorities must prepare plans for future housing estates, for factories and for development generally, but until the Government have given a definite lead they cannot know whether or not their proposed developments will be located in some future green belt, and if that should prove to be the case all their work will have been wasted. This situation is very important from a practical point of view.
More than the questions of law, it is the question of the physical working of the principle that has disturbed me. Our future housing, health and happiness are to a large extent involved, for if plans are not ready when the war ends, the great pressure there will be for houses will make it necessary for us to go ahead under possibly ill-considered arrangements. Green belts, which are advocated, as I think the Minister will agree, by all planning authorities, affect the congestion of our cities and towns. They prevent the improper use of good agricultural land, and they introduce possibilities of control, instead of leaving the lay-out to the merry whims or nebulous chance of land speculators or poorly-advised authorities. In its concluding words the Amendment leaves this matter very largely in the discretion of the Minister, but gives him the opportunity of allowing the growth of communities where possible and permits the extension or the introduction of industry in desirable cases. It will also allow him to define the appropriate size of built-up areas and will certainly stop ribbon development without his consent and I am sure we have had enough of our rural areas spoilt by ribbon development.
Without this Amendment local authoritise may plan their affairs in a very inconsiderate and unfair manner, without regard to any long-term planning ideas of the Minister. We have to face the fact, and this to my mind is most important, that the planning, the making of the drawings, the letting of the contracts, the carrying out of much administrative work will not take less than about 18 months. We have all seen in the papers to-day that General Smuts has said the war will end

suddenly, even though the end may not come in a very short time and we shall certainly not get a warning, and if the principle of the green belt, which has been advocated by every authority on the subject is to be introduced, now is the time to do it, so that local authorities may have the opportunity to deal not only with their legal problems but with their physical problems. They will want to get some guidance. If the Minister will accept this Amendment, it will undoubtedly lighten the work of his Ministry, which is going to be tremendous, but this Amendment goes to the root of one of the great uncertainties of the national position and is an essential step in town and country planning.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Can the hon. Member explain how he would make a green belt between Stockport and Manchester, where there are only zoo yards between the one town and the other?

Mr. Bossom: I think that is a very justifiable question. Obviously it would be totally impossible, and I should think that my hon. and gallant Friend, in putting his question, knew that it would be impossible. It was a very amusing suggestion on his part under the circumstances.

Mr. Mander: I would ask the hon. Member to give a fuller explanation of his Amendment. It seems to lay upon the Government the obligation to see that there must be a green belt round every town of a certain population. Is that to involve the pulling down of houses on a vast scale? It would be quite impossible in a great area of the Black Country to carry out any policy of this kind. It would be very desirable, but there are no green belts now in the neighbourhood of many large towns. At the same time this Amendment calls upon the Minister to preserve such belts. I really cannot understand how it would work out. Does the hon. Gentleman mean that this should be done in so far as it may be practicable? The words of his Amendment say that it must be done everywhere.

Mr. Bossom: In an old country like ours it is obvious the principle of green belts could be only done where it is possible and practicable. As I said in my opening remarks, the Amendment is rather a drastic one, but I hope the


Minister will accept the principle of it, and introduce any words which may be necessary to make it workable. My desire is to get the principle of having green belts where possible introduced into the Bill, so that local authorities can go ahead with their physical planning work for many of them are now much disturbed by the absence of this information.

Mr. Edmund Harvey (Combined English Universities): I support very strongly the principle of this Amendment. I think the objection raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Colonel Dower) in no way touches the principle of the Amendment. It would be very unfortunate if, because one cannot ensure a green belt around certain towns in the Black Country or between Manchester and Stockport, the Minister did not take powers to see that a green belt is provided in the large number of other cases where it would be quite practicable. Therefore, I hope the Minister will accept the principle of the Amendment and redraft it in words which are suitable. Because things are so dismal and miserable in the Black Country, we ought not to fail to make provision for the future where that can be done.

Mr. Lawson: I am sorry that I have not been able to take much part in these proceedings on planning, but the principle raised by this Amendment is one that has been in my mind a great deal, as it must have been in the minds of most thoughtful people who are looking forward to the proper development and planning of this country. As the Commission which sat before the war discovered, all experience shows that there may be unexpected and rapid developments of population in different parts of the country, without any arrangements having been made for preserving the amenities of those areas and for maintaining those natural surroundings which are even more desirable than the things one learns in school. I think it is very necessary that the Minister should give his attention to the question of ensuring that there are green belts around certain areas. Anyone who has noticed the developments which are taking place during the war knows that industry springs up in quite unexpected places, and unless the principle of the green belt is adopted we may find ourselves in a very parlous condition.
There is another very important reason why I am interested in this proposal. It seems to suggest a limitation on the population in certain areas, a limitation of the size of towns, and I feel that in a country like ours that matter deserves serious attention. As a people who believe in democracy and in the development of the individual's personality, we suffer from the danger of communities growing to a size at which the communal sense is lost. That is an outstanding problem in this country and one of the great dangers which we run. It has been pointed out—and London provides a particular example of it—that in many places one lives alongside one's neighbours without ever getting to know them. In the shelters a communal sense developed. People gathered together there and learned to know who their neighbours were. I have known many families who have had to come from the North to the South of England. I was never one who was against transference, because I have felt that the change from one locality to another enlarges one's outlook and education, but men, and women too, have often said to me when speaking of life in the outskirts of London: "We get better wages, it is a better living and there are other advantages, but we do not know anybody; there is no social life for us here." That is a psychological consideration which should not be overlooked. There is a very subtle danger to this country there. While it is very necessary to have a green belt round large areas of population in order to provide the amenities which are necessary—for I feel that trees and landscape are far more important than books in the general development of one's mental outlook—it is also important that some attention should be given to the limitation, in a rough and ready way, of the size of the population in these areas, in order that we may redevelop the communal sense upon which our real British character is based.

Mr. Jewson: I do not know whether the Amendment in its present form can be accepted, for the reasons which have been pointed out, but if not I hope the Minister will at least do something about this very important matter. As the hon. Member for Chesterle-Street (Mr. Lawson) has said, it is of the greatest importance that people should not live in such large communities that they lose their community sense, and it is


also of great importance, especially to the children, to have ready access to what are commonly known as the green belts. In my native city 5o or 60 years ago there was a delightful green belt accessible within easy walking distance to all the children in the city, but since that time I have seen buildings cover more and more of those green spaces until to-day the distances that have to be travelled in order to reach the countrified surroundings are very great and put them out of reach of a great many of the children. For that reason I support very strongly the principle which lies behind the Amendment, and I hope that if the Minister cannot accept it in its present form, he will at any rate do something which will help us to realise the ideal.

Mr. Hannah (Bilston): Nearly 300 years ago Sir Christopher Wren proposed something of this sort for London, but his ideas were entirely neglected. I wonder how many of us now regret the treatment of Wren. No one feels it was a good thing that he was not allowed to carry out that plan. Very few large towns exist around which some green fields cannot be found. The hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) has pointed out that there are big places in the Black Country where no green belts can easily be provided, but I do not think there is a town, even in the Black Country, where there are no fields within five miles. Very likely between Wolverhampton and Dudley there is comparatively small scope for leaving still unbuilt upon such agricultural land as exists, but there is some, even there. In the area of Sedgley, where I happen to live, there are still green fields and farms, and it is half-way between those towns. North of Wolverhampton and West of Dudley there are beautiful stretches of country, a bit spoiled perhaps, still not absolutely ruined by modem industrialism. Round West Bromwich, and Eastward at any rate, there is similar country. It is of vast importance that we should preserve our heritage and make provision for preventing gradual ribbon development and the spread of ugly industrial building, unplanned, over the countryside. As a piece of English literature the Amendment, it is possible, might be improved upon, but in its spirit and ideas it is perfectly admirable. I ask the Minister to give it that sympathetic and friendly consideration for which he is so justly famous in this House and beyond.

Sir Ernest Shepperson (Leominster): I support in full every word that has been said on behalf of this Amendment. I would give the Minister every power he desires in order to prevent our countryside being spoiled by the monstrosities which have been built up along our highroads, but the question I would put to him is, Is this Amendment necessary? Has he not already the power? The Bill states that all land not already the subject of a scheme in force shall be the subject of a scheme. The Minister can exercise his power. I want to give him these powers, but I should like his assurance as to whether he will have these powers already by the terms of the Bill.

Major York (Ripon): I am heartily in agreement with what my hon. Friends have said on this subject, but my hon. Friend who has just sat down has brought up a point upon which I also would like an assurance from the Minister. Although it would appear from the Clauses generally that the Minister has the power to regulate a matter of this kind, I do not see how he can insist upon local authorities doing the work which has been suggested without taking upon himself some central authority. That is the point which he knows very well is disturbing many of us, namely, the relationship between the central authority which is to be the directing force and the local authorities who are to carry out the work. There is a word of warning to be said on the Amendment. I agree that the wording is perhaps not right, but we must not come to regard green belts as public parks. In those green belts are to be performed acts of cultivation which cannot be properly performed if the townspeople are continuously trespassing upon and looking about various fields full of corn, and so on. Those fields may also contain stock, and in particular T.T. milk herds. The warning ought to be given in regard to this idea of a five-mile belt that the belt cannot be regarded as a playground of the towns on either side. A further warning is that we ought not to try to make concentric ring around towns the limitations which may be imposed by an Amendment of this sort, otherwise there would be one ring after another till the town, instead of being limited, would be extended still further.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I have seldom found myself so entirely in agreement


with the course of a discussion as I have upon this Amendment. The Committee is unanimously in support of the spirit which prompted my hon. Friend to put his Amendment down. There was a great deal in what was said by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), that it is sheer destruction of communal life to allow unregulated expansion all over England of vast communities of shapeless form, and that every effort ought to be made, by good town and country planning, to secure that the community sense is maintained which is one of the priceless possessions of the ordinary man and his friends and neighbours. The loneliness of vast cities is a very grievous matter. Access to the countryside is of importance not only for children but for grown up people to enable them to get away from the cities and disport themselves in the beautiful countryside.
If we were writing on a completely clean slate in this matter, which we by no means are, it would be a desideratum in every ideal urban community that a man could get out of it into the country without undue expenditure of time and money when he wanted to go there. That by no means says that cities and. towns cannot themselves be objects of beauty, refinement and dignity, as they certainly can be and as we shall endeavour to make them. The old saying is true of the Amendment as was said about many other things: "The spirit maketh alive, but the letter killeth." To adopt my hon. Friend's Amendment in the form in which he has drafted it would lay it open to the animadversions passed upon it by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penrith (Lieut.-Colonel Dower). We are not writing on a clean slate, and to adopt the Amendment and so make statutory a proposal of this kind, would be impossible. My hon. Friend's mistake—I suggest it to him with affection—is in trying to put a plan into the Bill. We ought to concentrate upon getting the machinery for good planning right. That is properly a matter for the Bill. If you try to put into the Bill a plan for all England and Wales, you will find cases here and there to which the plan is inapplicable. I would like to assure those who have asked me the question, that we have in

the Bill ample powers to secure the great object which we all have at heart. The mover of the Amendment suggested that the green belt should be the subject of a planning resolution. This is possible under the Bill, as are his further suggestions that no development should take place without the Minister's consent and that no development should be allowed in a planning scheme except with the Minister's consent. Under the present law the Minister's approval to a planning scheme is required, and this object can be achieved.
There are one or two other points. In reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ripon (Major York), who asked about the relationship between central and local planners, I would point out that there is an invaluable link, which I hope to strengthen and make more perfect as a matter of administration, in the regional planning officers who are situated in various parts of the country and who are in close personal touch with local planning officers and committees of local authorities who deal with this matter. I hope they will be very powerful in helping to secure consistently good planning throughout the country. There must be a lot left to local authorities, because local authorities know their own problems. We hope to secure that harmonious working of local enthusiasm and initiative with the central direction in the way I have suggested. I hope that what I have said will satisfy my hon. Friend that I am entirely in sympathy with the motives which prompted him to put down the Amendment. For technical reasons—I put it no higher—the Amendment cannot be accepted.

Sir E. Shepperson: Is it not a fact that very often the local authority are the guilty people in the production of ribbon development? They do it because they do not want the expense of making roads, and so they IAA their council houses on the main road. Will the Minister take power in the Bill to stop local authorities from destroying the countryside?

Mr. W. S. Morrison: Yes, Sir, I am taking that power. I am aware of some deplorable instances in which the local authorities have been bad offenders, and I will take power in the matter in future.

Mr. Bossom: I was glad to hear the Minister speak so sympathetically of my


Amendment. I beg of him to give advice to the local planning authorities throughout the country, if he cannot go further than that, and to ask them to arrange where possible to apply the principle of the green belt so as to make possible the many things which have been advocated during the discussion on the Amendment. He should not forget that the desire to get ahead is being interrupted, and he should realise that until the green belt principle is substantially approved local authorities will not know where to put their housing development and matters of that sort. I am glad of the Minister's assurance that he will help in this and the country's requirements in this matter, and I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. John Dugdale: I beg to move, in page 2, line 3, at the end, to add:
(3) Any local authority required by the Ministry to prepare a scheme shall also prepare a schedule of buildings of architectural and historical merit which are deemed to be worthy of preservation.
We have been discussing means of preserving one of our national heritages, our green fields. I wish to discuss the possibility of preserving another, namely. buildings, many of them constructed in a bygone age, of architectural or historical value. The Amendment is very small, and I fear it will not go far towards achieving the result which many of us want: But as it is small I hope the Minister will be able to accept it. Under the principal Act local authorities have been empowered to prepare schedules of buildings which are deemed to he worthy of preservation. Such schedules do not in fact ensure that the buildings will be preserved. They merely ensure that there shall be a list which can be referred to, and that the local authority itself, by the very preparation of the schedule, shall be cognisant of every individual building in its district worthy of preservation. I understand that the new Bill, when it becomes law, will refer in the main to local authorities which I think I might call backward in so far as they have not previously prepared schemes of their own. It cannot be assumed that those authorities which have been backward before will, in fact, prepare schedules simply because they are asked to do so. I would submit that

they must be told it is their duty to prepare schedules such as have been prepared by the L.C.C. and many other local authorities. I would ask the Minister, if he cannot accept this precise form of words, whether he will not do something which will compel all local authorities to prepare these schedules in the same way as some have already prepared them, so that we may at least know what buildings there are in the land worthy of preservation, whether or not we do preserve them.

Mr. Hutchinson: I feel a good deal of sympathy with this Amendment. If I thought that what my hon. Friend proposes was likely to accomplish the object he has in view, I should press upon my right hon. Friend that this Amendment should be adopted. But, on the contrary, I think that the effect of what my hon. Friend proposes would be the direct opposite of what he anticipates. What will happen will be this, that the local authority would prepare a schedule of buildings of architectural and historical interest—and, of course, local authorities are likely to take different views of what sort of buildings ought to be included in a schedule of that
nature—but the moment the schedule had been prepared, it would be regarded as a licence to demolish every other building in the district.

Mr. Hannah: God forbid.

Mr. Hutchinson: When proposals are made for re-development which will involve the demolition of buildings to which people in the neighbourhood have come to attach importance because perhaps of their historical associations or their architectural interest, this schedule, in which they have not been included, will be invoked as an argument that they possess no historical or architectural interest at all. 1 see my hon. Friend is laughing at that suggestion, but I would remind him that that is exactly what has happened in places where these schedules have already been prepared by the local authorities. It is much wiser for the planning authority not to prepare, any schedule in advance but to deal with each application for re-development as it is made to them, and as it arises and, when they deal with the application, to consider whether the buildings it is proposed to demolish possess historical or architectural merit which would justify their


preservation. I warn him that if a list is prepared beforehand it will in a great many cases be used as an argument against those persons who desire to preserve buildings of the kind which he has in mind.

Mr. Harvey: I think we are indebted to my hon. Friend who has put down this Amendment for raising a matter of very great importance which I am sure is near to the heart of the Minister. If he is not able to accept this particular Amendment, I hope we may be clear that the object of the Amendment is one which he has very much in view. We are far behind France in our arrangements for the preservation of ancient and historical buildings. The classification in French law of first, second or third class monuments of historic importance, with corresponding obligations for the State, the Department, and the minor local authority for their maintenance and repair, is one I should gladly see adopted in this country. This Amendment does not go more than a very little way in the direction of preserving buildings of architectural value and historic interest.
I feel sure that the danger my hon. and learned Friend opposite anticipates is hardly likely to arise. There has not come about a general destruction in France of buildings which are not classified, while there is a careful preservation even of buildings of comparatively minor interest, and an obligation is put upon the local authority to do it. That may come in this country later, but I think we need at this particular stage provision made for a survey of those buildings, whether in the form of this Amendment or in some other way. In many cases quite a small building could be preserved which would otherwise go, the ancient cottage, for example, dating back perhaps to the 15th century or earlier. I can think of one such falling into decay with no one taking an interest in it, and actually disappearing little by little. If we had a classification of this kind, the attention of local antiquaries would in some cases be called to small buildings which have escaped their notice, and you would have the county architectural and archaeological societies interesting themselves in the preservation of such buildings. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will see his way to meet the object which the Mover of this Amendment had

in view in putting down these words on the Order Paper.

Mr. Silkin: My hon. Friend, in moving this Amendment, has raised a very interesting and important point. It is unfortunately the fact that while permission is generally required to put up a building, no permission is required of anybody to pull down a building. Consequently, we have lost a considerable number of important buildings which have an architectural value or an historical interest, merely because the owner of such building thought it would suit him financially to pull it down. I think some action ought to be taken to deal with that possibility in the future. Under Section 17 of the principal Act the local authority may make an Order regarding any particular building. They are under no obligation to make an Order but may make an Order, and in that event the building may not be demolished without the consent of the local authority. I would like something of that sort extended in the present Bill. I am not sure that the words meet the case, because the mere making of a survey does not seem to me to be carrying the matter very much further. I think that local authorities should be required to make an Order in respect of any buildings they regard as being of architectural value or of historical interest, and those buildings, after consultation with the owner, should be properly safeguarded. I attach importance to consultation with the owner. At the present time in London surveys are being made on behalf of various Churches regarding the buildings which in their view should be preserved after the war. It happens that there are many churches of architectural value and of historical interest which are of no importance as churches, and the ecclesiastical authorities are anxious not to be burdened with the cost of maintaining them purely as museum pieces. That does give rise to a problem, and if the local authority made an Order that those buildings were not to be demolished, it would put upon the owner the burden of maintaining something which is of no importance or interest to him.

Mr. Hannah: A very good thing too.

Mr. Silkin: There are many churches which are very beautiful but have no congregations at all. It is therefore important that the owner should be consulted in


those cases, and it should not be entirely for the local authority to order that the building should be preserved or maintained at the cost of the owner without any consultation with him. Subject to that, I think the present law needs to be strengthened. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some assurance that, perhaps in another place before this Bill is parted with, some Amendment will be introduced which will more effectively deal with the present situation.

Mr. Hannah: It is a great pleasure to support my hon. Friend and neighbour in the representation of a Black Country constituency, who incidentally bears what is perhaps the most honoured of all names in English archaeology. It is rather more the spirit than the letter in this case which I should like to support. It is extremely important that such a list should be made. I am not perfectly certain that the local authority is always the best body to make it. I have lively recollections of the Royal Burgh of Edinburgh having torn down some of the most important archeological and historical buildings in that city for no good reason at all. I am still extremely sore about my defeat over Taylors' Hall.
I do not think there is so much difficulty about churches and castles—buildings of obvious importance that go back for centuries. About cottages there is far more difficulty. Some of the ancient cottages to which my hon. Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. Harvey) referred to are damp and difficult to bring up to modern standards. I think it can generally be done if there is an honest desire. It must be done. Some of our by-laws about old cottages are obviously out of date and absurd. My attention was drawn in Cambridge a few years ago to the fact that one of the finest chambers in that University, the famous Long Gallery at St. John's College, which forms the Combination Room, could be destroyed under our ridiculous laws as not being sanitary because the distance between the oak floor and the moulded plaster ceiling is not sufficient! It is perfectly ridiculous to condemn old buildings simply because the height of their rooms is not according to modern ideas, but cottages to be lived in must be made sanitary. I want very strongly indeed to support the spirit of this Amendment. We do want a far better arrangement to preserve ancient buildings than we have.
I am not so awfully certain that the bouquets handed to France are entirely deserved. In the city of Caen they shaved off the chancel of a medieval church for a road improvement in a way that seemed to me to be extraordinarily unnecessary. We are not by any means good at preserving our own buildings. This war has, unfortunately, destroyed a great many, and that seems to me to make it more urgently necessary than it would be otherwise that every old building we have should be preserved.
Personally, I would rather these lists were made by His Majesty's Inspectors of Ancient Monuments, in whom I have the very utmost confidence, than by the local authorities. But the really important thing is that the lists should be made, and that we should not merely rely on the inventories of really important buildings, that county by county are now being compiled by the Office of Works. We desire lists of small buildings—it may be that they do not go further back than the Regency—which really have architectural interest of such a character that the country would be very definitely poorer by their destruction.

Mr. Mander: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. Hannah) that perhaps the local authorities are not the best persons to compile a list of this kind. The experience of a great many of us has shown that familiarity often breeds contempt, and that local councillors and others who walk by a building every day are quite incapable of appreciating its historical value and arc not much concerned if an attempt is made to pull it down. I think you want the intervention of people with a specialised, or wider, outlook, such as the Ancient Monuments Board or representatives of the Royal Fine Art Commission, who would be in a position to look at these buildings from the national point of view which they represent. I am anxious to hear what the Minister has to say on this subject. It is one of great importance, which should be dealt with in whatever is the most suitable manner. I am inclined to think that my hon. Friend's suggestion is not perhaps the best that could be devised.

Mr. MacLaren (Burslem): I want to associate myself with this Amendment. The old Office of Works had considerable experience in preserving historical monu


ments, and from that experience the Ministry should be able to get a very good idea of the number of historical monuments that we have up and down the country. One of the most shocking experiences one can have when passing through some of our towns or villages is to see something which, when you know really what it is and how it came into being, you want to treat it with reverence, and then to see it suddenly flanked with a glaring red headline, "Woolworth's Stores," or something of that kind. It gives one hope of a future civilisation if one finds that there is a realisation of the need for the preservation of those links in our life which are concrete evidence of what our forefathers did for the love of God—because all great art is that, and nothing else.
I am not sure that we should follow the example of France. I remember being over there on two occasions and seeing those marvellous Gothic figures on the facade of Chartres Cathedral. When I touched them, I found, to my horror, that they were coming away as dust in my hands. I immediately reported this to the Ministry of Fine Arts in Paris, and had an interview there afterwards. They asked—would you believe it?—if I would make a report on the subject, and on what steps might be taken to preserve one of the greatest facades known to man. What did I find on making my inquiry? That such was their sense of proportion and reverence for this thing, which belongs not to France but to mankind, that they had put an aerodrome behind the Cathedral and an engineering shop nearby, thus inflicting the atmosphere which was destroying that delicate facade. It would be true to say that in certain ways the French are concerned about historical buildings, but there was a lapse in French minds when their reverence for things religious lapsed also. Anything which was regarded as religious tended to be disdained. I would suggest that the Minister himself, with that alertness which I know is innate in his character, and probably with some assistance from his Parliamentary Secretary, who is also alert in these matters, might compile a list of things which want preservation.
When I am asked whether local authorities should decide which historical monuments should be preserved, I think of Criccieth. Go down to Criccieth, and you

will find a very ugly cottage, where some Member of this House lived. Both his memory and that house, I think, should be extinguished, but you will find the people there want them to be preserved. I also want to speak of a matter near to my own constituency. We have there Croxted Abbey. One of the greatest blasphemies in England is that we have allowed a main road to be constructed right through the nave and what used to be the chancel, right through the centre of this old structure. I want the Minister to put a stop to that in no uncertain fashion. Then we have another spot known as Abbey Hulton. The local authority, with that precise and almost uncanny tenderness for things artistic, stuck on it one of those marvellous creations called a corporation housing estate, and when they found the spot where the original altar stood they covered in the whole of it with asphalt, to make it a playground. I hope we shall not be too keen to give local authorities custodianship over local monuments or sites. I would rather plead that the Minister should have the courage to get on with the preservation of these structures through his Department and through the experience of the old Office of Works.

Mr. Jewson: I sincerely hope that this proposed schedule will be prepared, but I doubt whether the local authorities are the best people to prepare it. They are only too prone to regard the exact width of a road as being far more important than the preservation of an ancient or beautiful building. That has been my experience in several unfortunate cases. I think that the weak spot in this Amendment is the word "deemed." Who is going to deem buildings to be worthy of preservation? Some authority has to do it, and I do not think that the local authorities are the best qualified. I hope that we shall have some higher authority to decide. However, I hope that in some appropriate form the idea behind this Amendment will be put into the Bill.

Major Heilgers (Bury St. Edmunds): I rise to say, in general, that I desire to give my support to the Amendment; but there is one caveat that I should like to lodge, in regard to cottages. I was brought to my feet by something that was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. Hannah). He said that he would like to see old cottages preserved, as well as historical buildings. Delight


ful as it is, from the aesthetic point of view, to see the old cottages and villages we have in this country, it is hardly fair to the inhabitants of those cottages to expect them to live in them, unless they are repaired under the Housing (Rural Workers) Act.

Mr. Hannah: I definitely said that some cottages were damp, and should be improved.

Major Heilǵers: That may be done under the Housing (Rural Workers) Act. But if you go into some of these old cottages, and see the condition in which the inhabitants and their forefathers for generations past have lived, you will agree that it is up to the Government to see that nobody continues to live in that sort of a house. Having made that protest, I give general support to the Amendment.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Henry Strauss): I think the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. J. Dugdale) has initiated a most useful discussion, particularly as many of the things that have been said in the course of it are also germane to Amendments which will come later. Nearly every Member who has spoken has expressed the hope that the Government will accept the spirit behind this Amendment. That, I have no hesitation in saying, we are doing. Perhaps I may incur slightly less suspicion in making that statement than a Minister sometimes incurs, because I have served on the Executive Committee of the National Trust and of the Georgian Group for a very much longer period than I have been a Minister in this House. I hope my own sympathy with this cause will not be suspect. Many Members have indicated that the problem is not so simple as might at first sight appear. I am not suggesting for a moment that the hon. Member who moved the Amendment thought it was a simple problem.
Doubt has been expressed in certain quarters on the question whether the local authority itself is the most suitable body to prepare a list of this kind. There are, as the Committee will be aware, such organisations as the National Buildings Record, and other outside organisations that are concerning themselves very much with this question. However, I think there is more in the desire of the mover of the Amendment than that, and

more that deserves our respect. I agree in part with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for 1lford (Mr. Hutchinson) that there is always the risk in compiling a list of things of merit that some people will assume that things not included in the list have no merit. Nevertheless, I think it is the duty of the planning authority to concern itself with ascertaining what are the buildings of architectural and historical merit in its area. I do not think it right that we should put this Amendment—or another to the same effect, because this has certain technical defects—into the Statute, because there are many things which it is the duty of the local authority to do in making a survey. We shall certainly impress upon them the importance of this subject—and, indeed, on that subject the opinion of this Committee has been unanimous—but if we selected one particular duty of an authority in making a survey, and put that into the Statute, that might cast doubt on the question whether certain other things which we say are their duty are really so important as we say they are. I would much rather leave it to be a matter for administrative action than put it into the Statute in this form. Indeed, if we found it necessary to make a regulation making the preparation of a schedule obligatory, we have sufficient power under the principal Act to make such a regulation.
One hon. Member mentioned the Ancient Monuments Acts, and in dealing with this whole problem—and I agree that further control to achieve the object which we all have at heart will be necessary-careful collaboration with those responsible for the administration of the Ancient Monuments Acts will be necessary. The Ancient Monuments Acts do not completely cover the field. That was one of the reasons for the enactment of Section 17 of the Town and Country Planning Act; 1932, to secure the preservation of these buildings. I think further action is necessary, but I do not believe that the Amendment is the way to achieve our purpose.
The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) drew attention very rightly to what is the essence of the problem, that a person can pull down a fine building without any permission, and he went on to say that owners frequently did this on financial grounds. That may be true. I am afraid it is also true that local autho


rities sometimes do these demolitions because they wrongly think them to be improvements, and when we are mentioning the one case we should not be blind to the other. I think that that covers the points raised by various Members in the Debate. I would suggest to my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment—and I should have to criticise it on technical grounds—that he has achieved his object by moving it and obtaining the unanimous opinion of this Committee in favour of 'the idea that lies behind it, a unanimous opinion which my right hon. Friend and I very much welcome. I would ask him whether in these circumstances he now sees fit to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Dugdale: In view of the hon. Member's assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Silkin: I want to say one or two things about Clause r, and, in particular, I would like to give my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary the opportunity of repairing some omissions he made on the occasion of his speech on the Second Reading, when, possibly owing to the temptation to score debating points against my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. Bossom), he did not leave himself with sufficient time to deal with other equally important matters. I asked him then, realising the importance of bringing the whole of the country within the scope of town planning interim schemes, why it was that, in fact, local authorities were not deemed to be covered by resolutions until after three months from the passing of the Bill. He did not give the reason, but I presumed there must be a very good reason for that delay. Secondly, and possibly this may be one of the reasons for the delay, we are dealing with local authorities which have not so far seen fit to pass resolutions, and presumably therefore they will have no conception of how their area is to be developed. Is it the purpose of the three months to give them time to look around in order that they may gather their thoughts and be in a position to deal with applications to develop in some orderly manner? I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he proposes to

give such local authorities any assistance or directions. If the purpose of the three months is what I imagine it to be, I respectfully suggest that even that period is not very long to enable a local authority, which has not previously been thinking very much about planning or planning a specific area, to get busy and to give some kind of standards by which they may measure applications to the Government. Unless they get considerable help from the Ministry, I imagine that they will not be in a position to discharge their duties very effectively.
The next point I want to mention is something which I mentioned to my right hon. Friend privately, and it is the application of this Clause to London. The effect of the Clause in London would be to bring into the scheme only land be- ' longing to the several Inns of Court, the Inner and Middle Temples, Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn. The whole of the rest of London is already covered by resolution. I take it that the effect of this Clause would be that these various Inns would become subject to town planning control by the London County Council. The whole of these areas, including the Inner and Middle Temples, are out of the administrative county of London, and no part of them is within the City. I personally feel that the London County Council is quite competent to deal with the redevelopment of the Inns of Court. The Benchers of the various Inns will be fully consulted, and I feel that they will not suffer at the hands of the London County Council, which will be the town planning authority. Therefore, if my interpretation of Clause 1 is what I think it is, I would welcome the Inns of Court coming within the jurisdiction of the London County Council. I thought it right to draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to the point, as I do not want this jurisdiction to come to the London County Council without all parties being fully conscious of the state of affairs.
I want to say a few words about the considerable distrust which is presently shown by hon. Members here, including, in part, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, against local authorities. They are considered to be unfit to carry out this thing or that particular duty. They cannot be trusted to prepare lists of historic buildings and so on. If that is the feeling of hon. Members, how can local authori


ties be entrusted to carry out these vast town planning schemes which are being imposed upon them, and which everyone in this country hopes they will discharge? We, in this country get the local authorities as well as the Government that we deserve. I respectfully submit that in the past the defects of local authorities, their blindness to beauty and their inefficiency in town planning, have been but a reflection of the blindness of people of this country. A local authority is no less a regarder of beauty than the ordinary member of the public. If you asked the ordinary member of the public to contribute sixpence towards the maintenance of a building of beauty, he would hesitate very much, and the local authority merely, reflects that view. But I believe that there is growing up a consciousness of the preservation of the countryside and beauty which is reflected in local authorities to-day. The hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. H: Strauss) has suffered in the past from the action of local authorities, and so have we all, but I believe that local authorities to-day reflect faithfully and truly the opinion of to-day, and I hope very much that they can be trusted to carry out the enormous tasks which it will be necessary for them to carry out after the war.

Mr. Jewson: I want to raise one point which I raised on the Second Reading and to ask for an assurance, if we pass Clause r as it stands, that there shall not be delay in dealing with the very urgent building problems with which we shall be faced immediately on the conclusion of the war. Reading the Clause, it seems to subject all land not already under a scheme to an imaginary scheme, but it does not suggest how the scheme is to be brought into being in the immediate future. I am wondering how a man who wants to build urgently needed cottages on land which is not, in fact, subject to an existing scheme but which is now going to be deemed to be subject to a non-existent scheme, is to get leave to carry on with his building. Who is going to tell him whether or not this building conforms to a scheme; which, as I have already said, is non-existent? I should like more information on that point.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I would like to say a few words in reply to the observations which have fallen from both hon. Members. The hon. Member for Peckham

(Mr. Silkin) is right in diagnosing the reason for the three months' period. About 250 local authorities are affected altogether by this resolution, which is deemed to have been passed by them, and they have in the past taken no planning action at all, so that they are devoid of staff and experience in the matter. The figure looks very formidable, but it is not so formidable if one analyses the position, because a number of the smaller authorities will, under the proviso to Clause r, find themselves taken in and co-operating with the larger existing authorities. Still, there will remain a few hard cases which will have to be met and given a chance to supply themselves with a proper staff for the purpose. There will certainly be decisions, and the regional planning officers in the various districts will give them all the help they can in putting their house in order to meet this new obligation which is upon them.
The other question my hon. Friend raised was that of the Inns of Court. I think he is right in his view that Clause r of the Bill applies to them, and we shall have to think about that in the future. There is no doubt at all that the Inns of Court are in rather a special position in that the use to which their buildings are put is not likely to change. In the past they Were excluded from schemes on the idea that they were static and no development was likely to take place in them, but alas, the war has changed that situation entirely and no doubt great reconstruction will be necessary in these ancient and beautiful buildings. All I would say at the moment is that there is power, if necessary, to deal with the matter by-revoking the provisions of the scheme and under the Bill one could possibly ask that the obligations of interim development concerning the Temple should be referred to the Minister. I put these things forward not as having made up my mind. It may not be necessary to deal with them at all, but if the difficulty to which my hon. Friend alluded arises, he can be sure that there are ways of easing it. I agree with what he said about local authorities. If you take any category of human beings, you can always abuse it as a category. Even politicians as a category have not been immune from that sort of abuse in the past from the general public. If there are a few such local authorities—


and they vary as human beings do—it is true to say that the great services which they render far outweigh the defects which may exist. Therefore, from my point of view it is very necessary that local enthusiasm and knowledge should form the basis of good town and country planning. He was right in saying that the carelessness, if it has been so, in the past over many aspects of planning by local authorities was but a reflection of their constituents' views, and indeed, the same is true of Parliament in the past.
Our neglect of this aspect in the past has been entirely the reflection of the general view of the people of this country. I can assure the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Jewson) that this Clause in no way delays the provision of housing, when it becomes possible. It will keep step with any easement of the position with regard to materials and labour, which is the real stumbling block at the present moment. He can give assent to this Clause on that understanding, and I hope the Committee will now agree that it should stand part of the Bill.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 2—(Refusal and postponement of interim development applications.)

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I beg to move, in page 2, line 8, at the end, to insert:
Provided that where an application is for permission to erect a new building on the site of a building destroyed by war damage or in respect of which the War Damage Commission have determined that a value payment shall be made under the War Damage Act, 1941, and such application is refused or conditions are imposed the effect of which refusal or of the imposition of which conditions -would be to render it impossible for the applicant to erect a building having a cubic content above the level of the ground as great as that of the previous building, or, in the case of a previous building used for business or industry, to erect a building having as great a cubic content above the level of the ground and as great 'a superficial area on the ground floor as those of the previous building, or to use such new building for any purpose of the same or similar character as that for which the previous building was last used before the destruction thereof, there shall be payable by the interim development authority to the applicant, provided he was the owner of the previous building, if he shall make a claim for the purpose within twelve months of the date of the refusal of the application or of the imposition of the conditions, such coi1pensation as would have been payable under Sub-section (1) of Section eighteen of the principal Act if a scheme under the

principal Act had been in force at the date of the refusal or of the imposition of the conditions and action had been taken by a responsible authority under paragraph (a) or paragraph (c) of Sub-section (1) of Section thirteen of the principal Act.
In moving this Amendment, I would like to apoligise for its inordinate length. In order to make compensation, however, I will cut my remarks as short as possible. The object of the Amendment is to see that fair treatment is given to those people who own a building as a shop or business premises, or use it for other purposes, which has been destroyed by enemy action, by a bomb, by one of our anti-aircraft shells, which do not always explode in the air, or which has been destroyed by any other means. This Clause will prevent the owner of such a building, in certain circumstances, from erecting a similar building if the original one is destroyed. I approve thoroughly of such power, because it is extremely unwise that a person should be allowed to erect a similar building if it offends against a planning scheme. But when we say to him, "You cannot erect a similar building," we ought to see that he is treated as fairly as his more fortunate neighbour whose property has not been damaged or destroyed.
I would like to put forward the sort of case I have in mind. Suppose there are two shops, one of which has not been hit by a bomb. The owner in that case will receive under the principal Act, under Section 18, Sub-Section (1), compensation for the decreased value and compensation for the injury to his trade. That compensation will be adequate to enable him to start a shop or business elsewhere. But the owner of the shop that has received a direct hit from a bomb or has been set on fire will only receive his value payment under the War Damage Act. The War Damage Act was intended to enable him. to re-erect his premises and recover his lost trade. Now we come along and say, "You cannot re-erect your shop because it will offend a planning scheme." It is quite right that we should be in that position, but I do not think that person should be put in any worse position where compensation is concerned than his fortunate next-door neighbour who has not received a direct hit. I hope the case I have put forward is not the correct interpretation of the various complicated Acts which apply in regard to compensation,


but as I see it the man whose shop has not been destroyed will have sufficient compensation to open a business elsewhere, while the man whose shop has been destroyed by a bomb will get inadequate compensation and will not be in a position to open a shop elsewhere. As the Committee have already spent two hours on the first Clause, I do not intend to be-labour this point. I regret the length of my. Amendment, but I could not put it down in fewer words.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I think my hon. and gallant Friend is under a misapprehension in this matter—

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: My right hon. Friend does not sound very certain.

Mr. Morrison: The Amendment which my hon. and gallant Friend has put down is a very complicated and technical one, and I have not had time to study it carefully. But so far as I understand his Amendment, the object which it seeks to bring about is, not to alter the compensation which a man who has a bombed house gets in respect of the town planning restriction, but to alter the time when he gets it.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: What compensasation will he get?

Mr. Morrison: I will tell my hon. and gallant Friend. He will get his compensation like any other owner of property when the scheme comes into force. My hon. and gallant Friend is asking for immediate payment, and that raises an issue which was debated very thoroughly in 1932 when the first Act was being discussed in this House.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but it seems to me to be a real hardship that the man who has had his shop destroyed by a bomb will not have sufficient compensation to enable him to start elsewhere and will not be permitted to re-erect his shop until the scheme comes into force, which may mean that he will have to wait a long time before he is in a position to re-open his business.

Mr. Morrison: I think my hon. and gallant Friend is confusing two sorts of compensatory payment. The man gets payment for bomb damage under the War Damage Act.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: For bricks and mortar.

Mr. Morrison: Whether it is a works or value payment, he gets appropriate compensation like any other citizen. However, with that matter I am not concerned in this Bill. What I am concerned with, and what I desire to convince my hon. and gallant Friend is just, is that if application, by a man to rebuild his shop as a piece of interim development is refused, what compensation does he get for the refusal? That is the only point which is germane to this Bill. I will tell my hon. and gallant Friend what he gets. He gets his compensation when the scheme comes into force. My hon. and gallant Friend may say that the man will have a long time to wait, but, as I have said, this matter has been argued, and it has always been a question of controversy. It has been found impossible to assess damage for refusal of an application of interim development until the scheme comes into operation, and for these reasons: You cannot tell what the damage really is until the scheme is in force. The refusal of an application goes to the application itself, but the real damage to the property owner can only be assessed when the scheme is in operation. For instance, a man may desire to put up a factory on his land and may be refused by the interim development authority. You can say that this is an injury to the man. But what is the measure of his injury? If when the scheme is in operation there are houses of a high density on that land, he can get some advantage. On the other hand, if instead of houses of a high density or shops the land is finally devoted to an open space, there is an entirely different quantum of compensation to be assessed.
It is impossible adequately to arrive at what the compensation is and what com. pensation is appropriate to a particular refusal of an application until you can see the scheme as a whole. That is nothing new; that is the law as it stands. My hon. and gallant Friend is asking me by this Amendment to alter that and to say that in a case of a man suffering from bomb damage he will get compensation, not for his bomb damage, but for refusal of his application to rebuild, and that the compensation should be paid immediately. Whether the man's damage be through accidental fire or his house falls down of its own accord in peace-time, or whether


goes out to him for his suffering, but from the point of view of assessing compensation the difficulty persists in the one case as in the other.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I am thinking particularly of the many shops which have been destroyed through war damage and which may not be allowed to reopen. When it comes to a question of compensation being paid, will the owner of such a shop receive compensation for loss of trade and injury to his trade which the owner of a shop not damaged by a bomb will receive?

Mr. Morrison: The actual compensation a man receives is as follows: He gets it first of all when the scheme is in operation. Under Section 18 (1, a) of the principal Act he gets compensation for injurious affection by the coming into operation of any provisions contained in the scheme. He gets his full compensation under Section 18 (1, a).

Lieut-Colonel Dower: In addition to value payment?

Mr. Morrison: In addition to the war damage compensation, with which I am not concerned. I have no jurisdiction over that at all. That is quite a different matter. Under Section i8 (2) he gets this further compensation. If he has been refused permission to develop during an interim period, that is covered by this Section, and then he can have that also taken into account. Under Section 10 (4) of the principal Act there is power given to interim development authorities to make immediate payment in certain circumstances. The whole thing is under the control of the Minister. The scheme must provide for reasonable compensation in proper cases, and I see no justification for a different basis of compensation upon people such as those to whom my hon. and gallant Friend has referred. It is equally impossible to assess it justly until the scheme comes into operation.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I would like to thank my right hon. Friend for his reply, but as this is a highly technical and complicated subject, I would like to ask him if he will go into it carefully in order to see that those people who have been unfortunate as the result of enemy action in this war are not unjustly treated. May I have that assurance?

Mr. Morrison: I can only say that if is a matter of war damage compensation my hon. and gallant Friend ought to address it to the Treasury. As regards compensation for town planning restrictions, I will do what I can to see that people in that unfortunate position are not put in a worse position. I do not think they are in this Bill, and I hope that with that assurance my hon. and gallant Friend will withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Hutchinson: I beg to move, in page 2, line 17, to leave out paragraph (a).
This Amendment is connected with the later Amendments which stand in my name, to insert in Clause 2 (2, b), after "Minister" the words: "upon the representations of the applicant or otherwise" and, after "Act," to insert:
and if so required by the applicant or by the interim development authority after holding a local inquiry.
Paragraph (b) would then read:
If with respect to any interim development application it appears to the Minister, upon the representations of the, applicant or otherwise, that there are exceptional reasons requiring the immediate determination thereof, he may, without prejudice to his power to require the application to be referred to him for decision in accordance with the subsequent provisions of this Act, and if so required by the applicant or by the interim development authority, after holding a local inquiry give directions requiring the interim development authority to settle the application.
I propose to discuss these Amendments together. Under Sub-section (2) the interim development authority may, by a notice of postponement, postpone the consideration of an application for interim development unless the applicant satisfies them that the proposed development would be carried out immediately. If the interim development authority does postpone the application in that way, and the applicant is not satisfied with their decision, as the Clause stands he is entitled to appeal to the magistrates in' a court of summary jurisdiction and, if he satisfies them that the development will be carried out immediately, they can set aside the notice. The effect of my Amendments would be that the right of appeal to the court of summary jurisdiction would be taken away and in its place the applicant would have the right to appeal to the Minister and either the applicant or the interim development


authority could require him, before determining the appeal, to hold a local inquiry. The procedure which the Clause contemplates is of a somewhat complicated nature, and the purpose of the Amendment is to simplify it. Let me invite the Committee to consider what seems likely to happen under the Clause. If the interim development authority decides to serve a notice of postponement, the applicant will then appeal to the justices. Assuming that he is successful before the justices, the matter would then have to go back to the interim development authority for them to consider whether consent for the proposed development should be granted or not. Presumably, in a case where the interim development authority had in the first instance decided to serve a notice of postponement, the case would be one in which the interim development authority would feel some doubt as to whether consent ought or ought not to be given, and, therefore, when the case comes back to them from the justices, the probability is that they will refuse consent. If they refuse consent, the applicant has the right under the principal Act to appeal to the Minister, who may hold a local inquiry on the appeal. This procedure involves a considerable degree of unnecessary circumlocution. The effect of my Amendment would be that the question will go to the Minister in the first instance direct from the interim development authority. The rights of the applicant would be safeguarded, because he can require the Minister to hold a local inquiry before he gives a decision.
There is another reason why this appeal to the justices' court is not a very suitable procedure in town planning matters. The magistrates' court is a court of summary jurisdiction constituted for determining cases which are comparatively simple and can be disposed of in a comparatively short time. These town planning cases are not cases of that kind. They will very frequently involve the evidence of surveyors, perhaps of architects, and of the planning officers of the local authority. Technical witnesses of that sort would have to be called, plans have to be examined and so forth. Quite a considerable time may be spent in determining such applications. The arrangements in the justices' courts are not suited to cases of that sort. It very often means that a special court must be constituted. If the

case lasts any length of time and has to be adjourned, difficulties arise about reconstituting the court on another day. Although the intention of the Bill is to provide a simple and expeditious mode of determining the question, the result would be exactly the opposite. It is not fair to the justices that, because their courts happen to be local courts and in some ways happen to be convenient, cases of this sort should be sent to them. Before the war there was a tendency growing up—I thought a bad tendency—to insert in private Acts Clauses of this sort under which appeals from decisions of local authorities went to a magistrates' court. Universal experience of that procedure shows that it was not satisfactory. There were delays due to the reasons that I have pointed out. The magistrates are not in many cases a court properly competent; by their experience and in other ways they are not a suitable tribunal to which cases of this nature should be sent. This Clause repeats that practice. The cases likely to go to the justices under this Clause are precisely the type of case for which that tribunal has been found unsuitable.
I suppose I should be the last person to take away from the courts and to give to a Departmental Minister the determination of any judicial matters which ought properly to be determined by the courts. But I do not regard this as a matter which ought properly to go to the courts. I feel that, as the work of my right hon. Friend's Department develops, it will become increasingly plain that some new form of Ministerial tribunal will have to be established for the purpose of determining questions which arise under the existing Town Planning Acts and this Bill and the new Bills which will no doubt be brought before this House. That being so, it seems to me that the best course for the Committee to take with this Bill, which in a sense is an interim Measure, is to retain in the hands of the Minister, subject to the safeguard of a semi-judicial local inquiry, the right to determine these different questions which will arise under the Bill. For that reason I suggest that my Amendments are not open to the objection that they seek to withdraw from the courts powers which ought properly to remain with them. I hope my right hon. Friend will be able to give us some encouragement to think that, for the time being at least, till the time


comes when he sets up a new Ministerial tribunal, he will retain these powers in his own hands.

Mr. Silkin: I am in complete agreement with a good deal of what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said. A court of summary jurisdiction is not the most appropriate tribunal to deal 'with the question whether a postponement notice has been properly given or not. I believe the Minister has had two minds about this question whether an appeal should go to him or to a court of summary jurisdiction. Probably he has taken the view that the issue before the court of summary jurisdiction is a pure issue of fact, namely, whether the applicant is in a position to build now or not, and that that is a perfectly simple matter for a court of summary jurisdiction to deal with, and that they have no other extraneous matters to consider at all. That is a perfectly intelligible view, but I should like to put the opposite view. I believe all local authorities would very much prefer that these appeals should go to the Minister, and that is a factor which he cannot ignore. Secondly, it is possible to take differing views even on facts, and it is important to get uniformity of decision. I can well conceive that one court of summary jurisdiction might take one view on whether it is possible to build now and another court might take another view. I know that theoretically they ought not to take different views on the same set of facts, but my limited knowledge of the courts tells me, and my hon. and learned Friend with his much greater knowledge would agree, that there would not be uniformity of decision.
The facts which the court will have to consider will not be very simple. They will have to consider, for instance, whether a licence has been granted by the Ministry of Works or whether a licence is likely to be granted in the near future. They will have to consider the question of the availability of material and labour to carry out the building. They will have to consider the question of the ownership of land. Very often the applicant is not actually the owner of the land upon which he wishes to build; he may hold an option or have some other indefinite title. They will have to consider the question of finance. Many applications are put forward to develop a piece of land when the appli

cant himself is not in possession of the necessary finance but he hopes to get it. All these questions which the court of summary jurisdiction will have to consider will tend to complicate the issue. It is vitally important that we should get uniformity throughout the country and a uniform basis for decisions on the question whether it is immediately possible to build or not. Therefore, I prefer, and all the local authorities would prefer, the tribunal to be the Minister himself. My hon. and learned Friend has referred to the possibility of delay and the overburdening of the court of summary jurisdiction. There is also the possibility of appeals. My hon. and learned Friend assumed that if the decision were given one way or another, that would be the end of it, but it might very well not be the end because the case might then go to sessions. I do not know whether it could go beyond sessions, but at any rate there is a question of appeal from the court of summary jurisdiction. It would, therefore, simplify matters if the Minister himself had the power.
If I may refer to certain Amendments which are down in my name, I would like to say that should the Parliamentary, Secretary find it impossible to accept this Amendment and should he press for the retention of the court of summary jurisdiction as the tribunal, I hope he will agree that the decision of that court should be final and that there should be no appeal to sessions. I hope, however, that he will see his way to accept my hon. and learned Friend's Amendment. It will be simpler; it will give the Minister a view of what is happening throughout the country and will please the local authorities. I would not agree with the suggestion of my hon. and learned Friend that where the appeal has been successful against the notice of postponement, the Minister should automatically consider the application. If the notice of postponement fails and the application has then to be considered, it should be considered by the local authority even though the applicant may then have to appeal for a second time to the Minister against the refusal of the local authority to consent to his application. The question of postponement and the question of the merits of the application are separate and should be dealt with separately.
I would not agree that such an application should form the subject of a local


inquiry. The multiplicity of appeals which the Minister is likely to get will be so great, that to have a local inquiry for each would make administration impossible. The Minister may say that anyway he could not face up to the large number of appeals that would take place on the notice of postponement. If, coupled with that, he had to deal with the merits of applications and hold local inquiries, I can well believe it would be impossible for him to administer the Bill at all. If that be the case, the court of summary jurisdiction would be equally over-burdened with appeals, and that is a factor which has to be taken into account.

Dr. Russell Thomas: I would like to ask the hon. and learned Member for 1lford (Mr. Hutchinson) the meaning of his Amendment in line 29, page 2, after "Minister," to insert, "upon the representations of the applicant or otherwise." What particularly does "or otherwise" mean? Is this not an example of the unnecessary circumlocution about which the hon. and learned Member talked? Otherwise—if I may use the word myself in what I believe to be its ordinary sense—does not the Amendment bring us back, more or less, to the Clause as drafted?

Major Lloyd: On a point of Order. I am not clear what Amendment we are discussing.

The Chairman (Major Milner): We are discussing the Amendment in page 2, line 17, and two consequential Amendments in line 29 and line 33.

Mr. Hutchinson: In reply to the hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. Thomas), the purpose of my Amendment to insert the words "upon the representations of the applicant or otherwise" is to make it plain that the applicant has the right to make representations to the Minister. I agree that the expression I have used is not a very neat one but it is not uncommon. It makes it plain that the Minister is not precluded from acting in the absence of any representation.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes (Carmarthen): I support the Amendment with which we are immediately dealing. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) on the undesirability of having public, inquiries automatically into matters of this kind. I join

with him in pressing the Minister to accept the substitution of the Minister as a court of appeal for what is proposed in the Clause. It has been assumed in the discussion on the Amendment that there may be something to be said for the court of summary jurisdiction because we are concerned with what is simply a matter of fact—the question whether construction is immediately possible. if we look more carefully at the words of the Sub-section we see it is not merely a question of immediate possibilities, with which we are concerned but the question of that being shown to the satisfaction of the interim development authority. In introducing words of that kind, it is clear that the draftsman envisaged the possibility of different policies being adopted by various interim development authorities. One authority might be more easily satisfied than another. They will have their different standards of satisfaction. There is, therefore, a scope for discretion. That that discretion should be kept in check or controlled from the national point of view is
desirable. That would be achieved by making appeals to the Minister possible. That discretion should not get out of hand and there is nothing to be said for substituting the discretion of the court of summary jurisdiction for the discretion of an elected authority, which is the interim development authority. Whether the courts of summary jurisdiction possess any great merits, is not a matter to be discussed now, but it certainly cannot be claimed for them that they possess the merit of knowing better than the interim development authority what policy should be adopted. They are not elected; they can in many parts of the country he rather of one type of mind, and they are not in any sense an appropriate body to deal with this matter. Reference has been made to delays that may arise if this policy of taking matters to the court of summary jurisdiction were followed. Another element has not been mentioned. That is the appeal by way of case stated from a magistrate's court, and that involves far greater delay than the ordinary appeal 4zo a court. of quarter sessions.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I am put in an embarrassing position since my hon. and learned Friend the Member for 1lford (Mr. Hutchinson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin), who have been very helpful on this Bill, agree about one section of the proposed


Amendments and differ on the remaining points. They also put me in an "embarrassing position by saying that the tribunal they would like is not the tribunal in the Bill but my right hon. Friend the Minister. It is difficult for me to say at any time that my right hon. Friend is not a very excellent tribunal, but I would draw attention to a difference, to which, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham drew attention. Let us keep, quite separate the two questions whether the decision on the merits of the application should be postponed and what should be the decision on the application on its merits. This Clause deals with postponement. In the view of my right hon. Friend and his advisers there should be two exceptions to the possibility of postponement, two cases in which the applicant could say, "No, I desire now to have a decision on the merits." The first case is where he can show that development would be carried out immediately if the application were granted. The other case is where the Minister is satisfied that there are exceptional reasons for requiring the immediate determination. The Minister might or might not think that the fact that it could be carried out immediately was an exceptional reason. In the first case, in the view we take, the applicant is entitled to have his application considered on its merits. If he is so entitled, and it is a matter upon which different views are possible, we have to consider what is the most convenient machinery for deciding that, and I think some sort of judicial procedure is desirable. The magistrates' court has been criticised on certain grounds, but, after all, it is the court that already considers still more difficult questions arising out of the principal Act, questions whether there have been contraventions of the scheme and so forth.
I find a certain contradiction in some of the arguments used against the machinery which we propose. It is said, on the one hand, that the facts are not simple and on the other that it would burden the Minister with comparatively little work if every appeal should go to him. If we did not have some Clause on the lines of that in the Bill, the Minister would be appealed to as a matter of course whenever an applicant failed, and if every such case were to involve a local inquiry the administration would

become practically impossible. I do not think the number of cases which will come before the magistrates' court would be nearly as great if the matter were left as we propose. I should, perhaps, say that in our view the question which will come before the magistrate is a comparatively simple one of fact, to be decided on local evidence. It does not involve the merits of the application in its planning aspect. It is, only the question whether or not the development can be carried out forthwith, and therefore whether or not there should be a decision on the merits.
Since we are discussing these Amendments together, I would say there are some considerable difficulties in the further Amendments proposed by my hon. and learned Friend, and I do take the view that if we did accept the Amendment now under discussion some alternative procedure for hearing would have to be provided. It would not, in the view of my right hon. Friend, be fair to applicants to say, "Notwithstanding the fact that your application if granted could be carried out immediately; we can postpone indefinitely consideration of its merits." Although the question will not arise if, as I hope, the Committee reject this Amendment, I will turn for a moment to the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend in Clause 2, page 2, line 33, where he proposes to insert the words:
and if so required by the applicant, or by the interim development authority, after holding a local inquiry.
I cannot think he has put those words in the right place to bring about the result which he must intend, because the Amendment would have the result that even if the Minister had decided that there are exceptional grounds for determining the application immediately he would be required to hold a local inquiry at the instance of either the applicant or the interim development authority before giving the necessary directions. Surely if there is to be an inquiry at all it should not be on the question whether the direction should be given, but whether there are exceptional reasons for requiring directions. I assume, therefore, what my hon. and learned Friend has in mind is that there should be an inquiry into whether there are exceptional reasons for requiring direction. Even so, there are very strong objections. The directions would enable any applicant who had failed to show that he was able to develop immediately to make


representations that there were exceptional reasons in his case. I find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) that this would make the administration quite unworkable. For the other reasons I have given I suggest that the Government are right in their view that there is a case against postponement of consideration on the merits when 'the applicant can show that the application, if granted, would result in immediate development. If he can show that, he is entitled to a decision. If those facts are disputed he is entitled, I think, to some sort of judicial determination of the matter in dispute, Far more difficult matters under the principal Act are already deter' mined in the magistrates' court and I think this is not the occasion to recast the whole system. I am not going to say whether my hon. and learned Friend is right in thinking that ultimately, for various purposes of town planning, we may have to have different tribunals, but for the present purpose and for deciding this limited question of fact the machinery set up in the Bill is, I claim, correct, and I ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.

Mr. Hutchinson: In view of the administrative difficulties to which my hon. Friend has referred I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir Adam Maitland: I beg to move, in page 2, line 21, after the second "on," to insert "the clerk of."
I rise with some expectation and hope that my Amendment will be accepted. I do so because, up to now, the Minister has steadfastly refused to accept any Amendments. He can accept my Amendment on many grounds. The first is that it deals with a very narrow point and gives the Minister an opportunity of saying how conciliatory he has been when other Amendments on more important matters, come to be submitted to him. It gives him the opportunity of saying, "At any rate, I have accepted some Amendments." Really, this is nothing more than a drafting Amendment. The proviso to the Sub-section we have been discussing gives the applicant a right of appeal. My Amendment deals with the way in which the notice shall be given. Under the Clause the applicant has a right of appeal against the decision of the local development authority to postpone the consideration of any application, and for purposes

of an appeal, notice must be served on the clerk to the justices and on the interim development authority, but it does not say Whether service shall be effected on the clerk, the surveyor, the town planning officer or some other officer. The object of my Amendment is to make it plain that the person upon whom notice should be served, is the clerk. I cannot see that my Amendment is one to arouse any passionate resentment. It is a simple, clarifying Amendment.

The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell): I am sorry that I cannot make an exception here to the policy so far pursued, but I hope I shall be able to convince my hon. Friend that we had better leave the Clause as it is. One always hopes that a technical objection will not be taken to notices if they do, in fact, reach the proper quarter. The words used here follow the words used in Sub-section (4) of Section 13 of the original Act, which provides that the written notice must be served on the clerk of the court and on the authority, and it would be rather a pity to have two codes of notices in the same group of Acts. Another possible objection is that a joint committee may not have a clerk, and in that case we should be in great trouble if anybody wished to be technical, as the Amendment would have provided that notice must have been served on someone who did not exist. I think there is a certain variety of terminology in Acts of Parliament dealing with this matter. In some cases notice has to be served on the authority and in some cases on the clerk. I do not believe that any local authority has ever taken any technical objection, if the notice, although it has reached them, has not had a heading in exact accordance with the words of the Act. As the principal Act requires that notice be served on the authority, a4ld as there is the possibility that in some cases the authority might be a joint committee who would not have a clerk in the statutory sense, I hope my hon. Friend will realise that, while we have given his Amendment every sympathetic consideration, on the whole it will be better to leave things as they are.

Sir Joseph Lamb (Stone): The right hon. and learned Gentleman started by saying that it was his great desire that the notice should be served in the right quarter. Who is to receive it if there is no clerk?

The Attorney-General: I said there might not be a clerk in the statutory sense. The word, "clerk" in a statute would mean the person who is the clerk in the statutory sense. Although some joint committees may not have a cleric in the statutory sense they would have a secretary to deal with correspondence.

Sir A. Maitland: I can conceive that an authority may not have a clerk in the statutory sense, but I cannot conceive any authority set up under an Act of Parliament not having a clerk at all. But, as I said at the outset, I regard this Amendment as quite unimportant, and in view of the fact that I have other Amendments down I shall give my right hon. and learned Friend the pleasure of postponing his acceptance until we come to those other Amendments. I beg to ask leave to withdraw this Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Ammon: I beg to move, in page 2, line 27, at the end, to insert:
the decision of the court under this proviso shall be final.
I am a little more hopeful than my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), because I am seeking to reduce appeals on points of law and here questions of fact are mostly concerned. Under the Clause which provides for an appeal to quarter sessions against the decision of the court of summary jurisdiction, the Bill proposes that the decision of the first court is not to be final. I submit that that is an unnecessary duplication of machinery, as at present appeals of this nature are referred to in Clause 2, Subsection (2). The question to be decided will be one of fact—whether the applicant will be able to carry out the proposed development immediately the application is granted. Under those conditions, it seems unnecessary for more than one court to be concerned in the matter, and it is suggested that the Clause should provide that the decision of the first court. should be final. That seems so clear and reasonable that I cannot imagine I need say anything more, and I expect the learned Attorney-General to get up at once and say that he accepts it.

The Attorney-General: One sometimes finds Members wanting a right of appeal and the Government saying they think it

is unnecessary; sometimes the Government say they think there ought to be an appeal and Members say they think it unnecessary. This Amendment falls into the second category. This, again, is a small point. The general procedure, the governing Clause, in regard to matters which come before courts of summary jurisdiction, provides for appeals to quarter sessions, which are of course appeals on questions of fact, and my right hon. Friend thinks it would be better not to make an exception in this class of case. Indeed, some of the arguments we heard just now could be used without any straining or unfairness in favour of a right of appeal. It was said, that though it might not be very frequent, a question might arise as to whether supplies, materials and labour and so on were sufficiently available to make out a case that development could take place at once, and that this might sometimes involve points of some difficulty. If so, it would be very reasonable that either party, if dissatisfied, should be entitled to a review.
In dealing with appeals I do not think it is so much a question of the men to whom you appeal being necessarily cleverer than those who first heard the case, as the probability that on a case being heard a second time, it will be better heard, because points will be brought out which were not realised in the first instance. You have a much better chance of getting down to the real issues. Another point was made with which I have considerable sympathy, that in dealing with the question of whether development can be carried out immediately, it is desirable, in so far as a question of principle might be involved, to have as much uniformity as possible. The suggestion then was to centralise the whole thing in London. I agree, if uniformity is the governing consideration, that that is the way to get it. On the other hand, to centralise everything in London would clog the machine. Local decisions are bound to show a certain amount of lack of uniformity. In so far as uniformity is desirable you would get a greater likelihood of it, or at any rate a possibility of correcting excessive diversity, in the courts of summary jurisdiction. Here again, though I am sorry to disappoint the Mover of the Amendment, we have considered this matter from what we. feel are the relevant angles, and we think it much better to leave the Bill as it is.

Mr. Ammon: The Attorney-General has certainly made rather heavy weather about keeping uniformity. As he has evidently made up his mind, however, I beg to ask leave of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 3—(Temporary permissions for
interim development.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 4. line 3o, at the end, to insert:
except where the application in connection with which the period was fixed was determined by the Minister on appeal from the decision of the interim development authority.
This is a rather technical matter designed to save time and to simplify the machine. Clause 3 deals with the power of an authority to grant permission for the erection of buildings for a limited time only. An applicant who is dissatisfied, may appeal to the Minister. The Minister then decides the period for which the building should be erected. Sub-section (4) gives power to, the authority, at the end of a fixed period, to extend the period on the application of the owner. If the owner is dissatisfied, he can appeal to the Minister again. The object of the Amendment is that he should not have the right of further appeal to the Minister. There should be one appeal to the Minister, either at the beginning when the original application is made, or when the applicant is dissatisfied with the decision of the authority as to extending the time.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: The reason why the provision exists in the Bill allowing the period to be extended on a further application to the local authority, is that when the application is originally made, both the applicant and the local authority have a certain view in their minds about the future. The local authority think that by the end of the to years there ought to be no further need of the building in question, because they will be able to get on with their positive, permanent reconstruction. The applicant at the same time, says that he is willing to have his building put up for 10 years. Frequently the future proves different from the expectation entertained at the time. The reason why the Sub-section is inserted is to give both applicant and local authority a chance to review the position again

before the end of the period, so that, in the light of any changed circumstances, they may say whether the period originally agreed to was too short or too long.
One cannot imagine a man making an application for an extension of the period, unless there were circumstances, as he thought, in his favour, which had occurred between the two dates, altering the ground of the judgment which imposed upon the local authority and himself the period set in the first instance. It is precisely because things have changed before the end of the period and there may be a different set of facts on which to judge, that this provision is inserted. If a change of fact operates to enable the local authority to extend the period if necessary, and thus alter the view they formed at the beginning of the period, and if the local authority can be taught by the events that have occurred that a fresh extension is necessary, surely the Minister should be given the same opportunity of reviewing the whole circumstances and of coming, if necessary, to a fresh decision. The Minister is no more prone to make an absolutely accurate forecast of the future than is the local authority. I think it is reasonable, if we give a chance for the original time to be extended, to allow the same latitude to the Minister to hear an appeal. I know that the sole object of my hon. Friend in putting forward the Amendment is to remove obstruction and duplication of work and I am grateful to him for that help, but if we are dealing with a changed set of circumstances, both the local authority and the Minister should have a chance of reviewing the matter afresh.

Sir J. Lamb: Do I understand the Minister to say that there may be altered circumstances which would justify not only an increase of a period but also the right to ask for a decrease?

Mr. Morrison: No, my hon. Friend is quite in error.

Sir J. Lamb: I am glad that the Minister has made that point clear. In the case of a period fixed at 10 years, would it be possible fur the local authority, at a period of less than the 10 years, to ask for an alteration so as to shorten the 10-year period?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir. No such alteration as that can be made, except by agreement between the local authority and the applicant.

Sir J. Lamb: I am satisfied.

Mr. Sitkin: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir A. Maitland: I beg to move, in page 4, line 34, at the end, to insert:
or on or within a limited time after the giving of a notice and whether such conditions were included in the document granting the permission or in any agreement or other document.
The object of Clause 3 is to enable an interim development authority to remove a building or to require it to be discontinued. The question is, what is meant by "limited period"? I am informed that conditions prescribe the date of the removal or discontinuance and require it to take place on the giving of a notice, or on the expiration of. a limited time after the giving of the notice. It is a question whether that procedure is covered by the words "at some future time." I am further told that it sometimes happens that the condition is not actually included in the document giving the permission but is contained in a separate agreement or other document. The object of the Amendment is to make it clear that, in these cases, permission is deemed to be given for a limited time.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for having drawn attention to this matter. It is very important to get the matter absolutely straight as to what is the meaning of "temporary permission." I do not like the words suggested by my hon. Friend but I think he has drawn attention to a matter which needs clarification. If he will withdraw his Amendment at this stage, I should like time to consider the matter and possibly to put down an Amendment in another place, which would have the object of 'making clear what is perhaps a little vague. The words have puzzled my hon. Friend, and that is a sign that they require looking into.

Sir A. Maitland: I am very much obliged to the Minister for his kindness in giving me that assurance. I, therefore, beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 4—(Revocation and modification of permissions for interim development.)

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I beg to move, in page 5, line 2, at the end, to insert:
Provided that, in giving such consent, the Minister shall by the terms thereof secure that any such order shall provide that in addition to any compensation payable under Sub-section (4) of this Section or under Sub-section (2) of Section seven of this Act any person whose property has been injuriously affected by the revocation or modification of the permission shall be entitled, if he makes a claim for the purpose within twelve months from the date when the order is made; to claim compensation for such injurious affection from such authority as may be specified in the order.
The object of this Amendment is to ensure that wherever possible when an interim development authority, having granted permission for development, change their mind, compensation' will be payable. I fully appreciate that from time to time it will be necessary for an interim development authority to change their plans, and my right hon. Friend has pointed out that the falling of bombs from the sky very often changes all ideas of how a particular area should be developed. One presumes that at the end of this war bombs will not continue to fall—at least one hopes not—and I do not see any reason why interim development authorities should go on constantly changing their plans when they have once made them unless the plan is, in fact, a rotten one or an ill-conceived one. When the Minister starts chasing interim development authorities they may not put forward carefully prepared plans but will want to please him by getting on the job and putting forward plans which may require to be altered subsequently.
This Amendment will cover certain cases of loss where an interim development authority change their minds which at present would not be given under the Bill. In particular I have in mind a man who has perfectly honestly been to the interim development authority and said, "Will you give me permission to develop on my land?" and the authority has said, ' Yes, you can." Then it is quite possible that through ill-health, or business losses, or having to go abroad, or for other reasons he may sell that land to another person, who buys it at a building value price, Pays full value for it, and that when it comes to a question of that land the plan is suddenly changed, and he is


told that he cannot develop on the land for which he has paid a building value price because the interim development authority have changed their mind. Overnight he might find all his savings which have been invested in that land, or two-thirds or three-quarters, wiped out. I think that wherever it is possible, especially if an interim development authority have not a very good reason for changing their minds, they should compensate those people who suffer from their decisions or their wrong decisions. That is the object of this Amendment.

Mr. Selley: One additional reason I should like to point out in support of this Amendment is caused where the death may have occurred of the person who has been given this interim development order. Ft would be very hard on the estate of that person to lose those benefits which would have been carried into effect had the deceased person lived, and which it would be deprived of by the alteration of such an Order. Therefore I think the Minister should give serious consideration to this point.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I think the Amendment of my boil. and gallant Friend is based on a slight misapprehension of what the position would be in the absence of his Amendment. In fact, very similar considerations arise, he may not be surprised to hear, as in connection with his previous Amendment. The novelty he seeks to introduce into this present Amendment is the immediate payment of compensation. That, for the reasons given by my right hon. Friend in resisting his earlier Amendment, has been fully considered on other occasions, and would involve a very radical alteration of the principal Act which we are not proposing to make. The rights of an applicant in die case where there is a revocation of permission are generally the same as where a permission is refused; his rights to compensation for injurious affection under Section 18 of the principal Act will, of course, stand. My hon. and gallant Friend is proposing a change, for which I can find no logical justification, between the case where a permission has been given and has been cancelled and the case where permission is refused. There really is no distinction in logic between the two cases, except this one, that in the former case there may have been some abortive ex

penditure. For that we make provision in a later Clause in this Bill, but apart from that difference in the two cases there is no more reason why he should not have to wait for his compensation until the scheme comes into force than there is for anyone else waiting for a similar period.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: There is just this point. If a person says, "May I do this?" and the interim development authority take everything into consideration and say, "You may do it," one has some right to say, "This can be done." When they are quite definite one really assumes one may do it.

Mr. Strauss: I think I ought to correct at once the impression my hon. and gallant Friend may have inadvertently given that in every case where a local authority or the Minister revokes or varies permission already given it means that the local authority originally made a mistake. That is not so. Subsequent events, particularly war damage, may radically alter the state of affairs and it may be in the public interest that permission, rightly given originally, should be changed in the light of subsequent circumstances. The main difference between the two cases is that the man may have acted on an earlier permission. If he has done so, and has incurred abortive expenditure, we make provision in a later Clause of the Bill. Apart from that, there is, in my submission to the Committee, no reason for giving him an earlier claim for compensation than if his application had been originally refused. I do not want to weary the Committee by repeating the arguments already used by my right hon. Friend on an earlier Clause, but the reasons that influenced Parliament over ten years ago not to give compensation for interim development refusals until the scheme came into operation still retain their validity, and I think the House, considering the question afresh, would be likely to come to the same conclusion. I would finally remind my hon. and gallant Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for South Battersea (Mr. Selley) that there are provisions—I think my right hon. Friend has already drawn the attention of the Committee to them—in Sub-section (2) of Section 18 of the principal Act.
In awarding any compensation payable in respect to property injuriously affected by the coming into operation of any provision contained in a scheme, account shall be taken


of any additional injurious affection of the property by reason that since the commencement of this Act the Minister has refused, on an appeal made to him under an interim development order, to grant an application for permission to develop the property, or that the Minister has imposed any conditions on the grant of such an application made since that date.
We have taken steps, in the Clause under discussion, to see that the same possibility of making an additional award under Sub-section (2) when the scheme comes into operation shall operate in the case of a revocation of a licence. Haring regard to the circumstances I have put before the Committee, I trust my hon. and gallant Friend will see fit to withdraw his Amendment.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: I would like to thank my hon. Friend for the answer he has given. There are one or two points I should like to make. He asked what positive action there was. Positive action is provided by the person who says, "I am prepared to buy this land, because I have been told I may develop on it." There is a perfectly positive action there. The second point is, Why should it be a conclusive argument that the Act of 1932 is an absolutely perfect Act? I want to see further powers. I want to see goon planning as well as any Member in this Committee, but it seems to me that the Minister's final answer to any point he does not like is to say that those powers and provisions were in the 1932 Act. If there is something bad in the 1932 Act that we do not like, cannot we alter it? Must it stay there for ever? I do not see that that is progress at all. However, my hon. Friend has told me that at long last, when the scheme comes into operation, compensation will be paid. I thank him for that answer, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir A. Maitland: I beg to move, in page 5, line 3, to leave out "The Minister," and to insert:
If it appears to the Minister that it is expedient, having regard to considerations affecting the public interest, whether generally or in the locality concerned, that an order should be made under the foregoing subsection, he.
With your permission, Mr. Williams, may I take also the next Amendment standing in my name? This Clause gives power to an interim development authority

in certain circumstances to make an Order, with the consent of a Minister, to revoke or modify a permission to develop which has already been given. Sub-section (2) of the Clause, in effect, substitutes the Minister for the interim development authority, by enabling him to require an Order to be made for the revocation or modification of a consent to develop. The Minister himself was charged under the Minister of Town and Country Planning Act, 1943, with certain duties. There was enjoined upon him the responsibility of securing consistency and continuity in the framing and execution of a national policy with respect to the use and development of land, and in view of those powers it would seem that one could not successfully object to this power which he now seeks. But it is suggested that the power he seeks in this Sub-section should be operated only where it is necessary in conjunction with "national planning." To attain this, the Amendment introduces the same phraseology as is used at the beginning of Clause 6. I hope that the Minister will see his Way to accept the Amendment.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: My hon. Friend referred to the fact that he was trying to import into this Clause the introductory words of Clause 6. He seemed to think that if those words were good enough for Clause 6, why were they not good enough here? The reason is that Clause 6 and this Clause do quite different things. I am bound to refer briefly to what Clause 6 does, in order to meet my hon. Friend's argument. Clause 6 decides who is to deal with the matter, whether the Minister or the interim development authority. In this Clause, the question is not who is to consider a proposal to revoke or vary, but what should be done about an individual application. In Clause 6 it is necessary to direct the Minister's attention to what he should have in his mind, namely, considerations of the public interest, before he takes the thing out of the hands of the interim development authority, but in this matter, the revocation and modification of permission, the Minister has been already told by Subsection (1) of Clause 4 to what he should direct his attention. He is to think that:
it is expedient, having regard to the provisions then proposed to be included in that scheme.
Not only are these words which stand in the Clause more appropriate than those proposed by my hon. Friend for this pur


pose, but in Sub-section (3) of the Clause there is, in effect, a right of appeal given to the Minister where the interim development authority, either of their own accord or instructed by the Minister, grant an application. If I were to adopt my hon. Friend's suggestion, such a right of appeal would be entirely nugatory. Before it came about as a result of a direction to make an Order, it would have to appear to the Minister that it was expedient, having regard to the public interest, that the Order should be made. I should in that case have decided the m4tter in advance. The purpose of this is to give the Minister a general right of review, either in his own interests or in the interests of applicants, having regard to the particular merits of each case. The words which my hon. Friend proposes, although admirable in Clause 6, are inapplicable in this Clause, having regard to the abject he has in view.

Sir A. Maitland: Having regard to what the Minister has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Rostron Duckworth: I want to refer to the provision, in lines 21 and 22 on page 5, that the authority may make a contribution to any person "whose property is injuriously affected." Does this phrase include the difference in the value of the land before revocation of the Order and the value of the land after such recovation? It seems to me that that difference, arising out of the revocation, may be rather serious in some instances.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: The words used in this Sub-section have the same meaning as in the principal Ant. If my hon. Friend will turn to Section 18 of that Act and the definition Section which follows, he will find an exact definition. If he then has any point of difficulty, I shall be glad if he will put it to me.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 5—(Power to enforce interim development control.)

Sir A. Maitland: I beg to move, in page 5, line 40, to leave out "is," and to insert "has been."
No doubt it will meet the desire of the Committee, Mr. Williams, if we discuss this with certain other Amendments which are consequential. These Amendments are regarded by local authorities as being important. I have less expectation of their being accepted than I had of the acceptance of my previous Amendment, so I do not approach my task with undue optimism. I will state at once one reason why I should myself object to the Amendment I am now proposing. I think it is as well to state that if the Amendment were carried, it would have a retrospective effect. The House is always jealous of passing legislation of that nature. I wish frankly to meet that charge, and to say that I recognise that this has the effect of retrospective legislation. It may be, however, that the case I have to put on behalf of the local authorities, resulting from their experience, may justify the Minister in taking a wider view on that general aversion to the introduction of retrospective legislation. I do not know. But I at once admit the validity of that argument which the Minister might use in opposing the Amendment.
The Clause deals with the power to enforce interim development control. Under the existing law, if permission to develop land, whether by building or by a change in the use of the land, is withheld, there is nothing to prevent the applicant disregarding the prohibition altogether, and erecting buildings or using his land as though the permission had been granted. That is the advice which has been given to me. Some of my legal friends on the Front Bench will perhaps tell me if that is wrong. When the scheme comes into operation later, however, such a person will not receive compensation for the removal of the building. It might have been thought that that sanction would be sufficient to deter persons from developing land when permission has been withheld, but, I am informed, the experience of local authorities shows that that has not been the case, and that many persons have gone on notwithstanding such prohibition. The Clause as printed goes far to remove this defect, but it applies only to buildings or development of land carried out after the commencement of the Act. The object of the Amendment is to give local authorities the right where the prohibition has been disregarded to remove buildings or require any development to be discontinued al


though it was started before the present Measure came into operation.

Lady Apsley (Bristol, Central): I very much welcome this opportunity of supporting what my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) has said on this Amendment. It is of great 'importance to some of our larger cities, particularly some of those which have suffered severe bombing. There are one or two points I should like to bring to the notice of my right hon. Friend. The purpose of Clause 5 is to enforce interim development control after the passing of the Act, but there is, as the Bill stands, no power of enforcement against improper development that has taken place during the period of the interim development order. I would remind my hon. Friend that at present there are two stages to these development orders. The first is that when the local planning authority desires to plan a certain area it has to get a resolution passed by the local authority. The second stage is that those plans have to be approved, and have to be prepared. Obviously, in the bigger cities there must be a considerable interval between stage one and stage two. If an individual decides to ignore the interim planning order he is able to do so, because the local authority has no power of enforcement until the order becomes operative, which may in the larger cities not be for one, two, or even three years. That, in my opinion, is a very serious omission. I would ask my right hon. Friend to accept this Amendment, because the Bill, although it deals with any new development, certainly does not deal with anything which an individual may have done during the interim planning order against the wishes of the local authority.

Mr. Silkin: I put my name down to an Amendment which has the same object, so I should like to speak on this Amendment. I cannot understand the lack of enthusiasm with which the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) moved this Amendment. I do not think that a person who put up a building with the knowledge that he was contravening a scheme and acting contrary to the order, and with a knowledge that one day at any rate he might be called upon to pull that building down, is deserving of very much sympathy. The purpose of the Amendment is not to do something to such

a person which would not otherwise be done, but to do something a little earlier. In any event; when the scheme comes into effect, the person can be called upon to pull down the building. What is proposed in the Amendment is that if it is in the national interest that that process should be somewhat ante-dated, the authority may call upon such a person to pull down the building now. In any case, but for the war, the probability is that in many cases the scheme would already have come into operation and such building might very well have been required to be pulled down. These people, therefore, have had the benefit of the period of the war and probably will not be required to pull down the building during the war. I can see no injustice, hardship or anything improper in this provision being made retrospective, so that persons who put up buildings in defiance of the local authority in the past are put in exactly the same position as if the scheme had become operative and in the same position as persons who put up buildings in defiance of the local authority in the future. The Amendment is supported by all these local authorities concerned, including the London County Council, and I hope that the Minister will see his way to accept it.

Mr. Henry Strauss: The reason why my right hon. Friend is unable to accept the Amendment is largely the reason which was admittedly in the mind of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), who moved it. This would be retrospective legislation. Hon. Members have spoken as though any applicant whose application was rejected had no right to proceed with the development of his land. That was not so. He had every right to do it. He had a clear right and a definite legal right to do it. The only thing was that he ran the risk—not the certainty—that, if eventually when that scheme came into operation the building he put up was deemed to be a contravention of the scheme, he was under the liability to remove it without compensation. But if he chose to take that risk, he had every right to do it. It would be, in the view of my right hon. Friend, a rather serious thing to start retrospective legislation of this kind and to say, "Notwithstanding the fact that what you did was perfectly legal under the existing law, we are, nevertheless, going to treat it exactly


as we should treat it if the law had been something quite different." The objection which the Committee has so ofen shown to retrospective legislation would apply in this case if we had taken that action.
Let me point out one perhaps slightly technical matter, which has not been mentioned by any of those who have taken part in this short discussion, but which has some application to what we are considering. Until the Act of 1932 was passed, there was no general power for planning authorities to prepare schemes for built areas. Planning authorities in a number of places did, nevertheless, pass resolutions for built areas which would have been "in force" for the purposes of the present Clause. The Minister of Health, in approving "preliminary statements" which formed part of the procedure before 1932, excluded such areas, and for practical purposes the resolution was dead, and, accordingly, much development was carried out without formal permission under the interim development order, because in view of the exclusion from the preliminary statement the local authorities told developers that application for permission was unnecessary. In law, however, the resolution is still in force, and, accordingly, although for the reasons stated, the development was carried out in all innocence, the development would be penalised if this Amendment were carried. I advise the Committee to reject the Amendment, but perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham, in all the circumstances, may wish to withdraw it.
Before I sit down I should like to mention one possible case which some Members of the Committee may have in mind and where they think great injury might be done unless we had something of this kind. There may possibly be a case where somebody is using a piece of land to dump refuse in and is continuing that without any permission. Obviously, no one wants anyone to continue to use land or further lands for dumping refuse, if it is a continuing nuisance and permission had been refused. There might be some legal question whether that could or could not be stopped under the Clause as it stands without any Amendment. The Committee will agree that if there is any doubt, it ought to be set at rest, and, in asking my hon. Friend to withdraw the Amendment, I will give an

undertaking that that latter class of case that I have mentioned will be looked into, and if it is thought that it is doubtful whether we could stop such an action under the Clause as it now stands, an appropriate Amendment will be moved by the Government in another place.

Sir A. Maitland: Do I understand from my hon. Friend that the undertaking may be construed to mean that he is prepared to discuss the whole question with representatives of different local authorities? Am I to interpret it in that way?

Mr. Strauss: I am sorry, but that would not be the right interpretation. The general proposition that enforcement of interim development control should be made retrospective is rejected by the Government. But it might be argued that under the Clause as drawn we should be unable even to prevent what would be in the minds of all of us really a new offence; that is to say, continuing to use ground for dumping and using more ground in the future. In so far as our Clause might have that effect, we shall look into it, and if the Clause as drawn, in the view of our advisers, is not considered enough to enable the local authority to stop such action, we will move an appropriate Clause in another place to deal with that type of case. But the, other announcement stands, that the Government reject the proposal for the enforcement of interim development control being made retrospective.

Mr. Leach: May I ask whether the Minister, in any projected new Clause, will also take powers to deal with any other inappropriate uses of land besides rubbish heaps? One can imagine many such inappropriate uses.

Mr. Strauss: If the hon. Member will look at the Clause, he will see that we are taking absolute powers under the Clause to stop any future disregard of a decision given by the local authority in the exercise of interim development control.

Sir A. Maitland: I. would like to insist upon the point that this is regarded as very important by the local authorities and that their experience has led them to seek to have the Bill drafted in the way suggested in the Amendment. I fully recognise my hon. Friend's argument with regard to the objection to retrospec


tive legislation, but I ask him—I am not sure myself whether it covers all points—to consult the local authorities to see whether in fact what he has proposed more or less meets their view, and if he will do that, I am prepared to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir A. Maitland: I beg to move, n page 6, line 23, to leave out:
The Minister may give general or special directions for controlling.
and to insert:
If it appears to the Minister that it is expedient, having regard to the considerations affecting the public interest, whether generally or in the locality concerned, that he should control.
I formally move this Amendment for the purpose of giving the Minister an opportunity to tell me why my previous Amendment is not acceptable.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: My purpose in rising is to answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) why we must adhere to the position that we cannot make retrospective legislation penalising people who acted legally in the 'past. We are prepared to examine the subject to see what we can do to prevent the continuing use of that which when it was inaugurated was legal. That is all we can- do. These questions are very much better argued with a concrete case before one than in abstractions and I should be very glad to hear from representatives of local authorities of the sort of concrete problem which is troubling them and then we could see what we could do. If my hon. Friend could make that fact known I would be very greatly obliged to him.

Mr. George Griffiths (Hemsworth): Will the Minister consult the Associations of all local authorities—the county councils, the rural councils and the urban councils?

Mr. Morrison: We have already, before introducing the Bill, had consultations with all local authorities including the rural district councils and the urban district councils. The purpose of my intervention at the moment is to try to get the assistance of hon. Members who know from their own knowledge or association with local bodies the sort of concrete prob

lem troubling them so that we could see what to do, and that applies to all associations of local authorities.

Sir A. Maitland: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 6, line 3o, at the end, to insert:
Provided that before giving any such directions the Minister shall consult where any particular interim development authority will be affected, with that authority, and, where interim development authorities generally will be affected, with such associations of local authorities as appear to him to be concerned and with any local authority with whom consultation appears to him to be desirable.
Under Sub-section (3) of the Clause the Minister is to be given powers to give general or special directions to local authorities on the way in which this Clause has to be carried out. These are very strong powers, which, it is stated, in Sub-section (3) shall be enforceable on the application of the Minister. The Amendment says that before the Minister exercises these very strong powers he shall consult where any particular interim development authority would be affected, with that authority, and where it is a general direction, that he should consult with the representatives of the various authorities which will be concerned. It is not the same kind of consultation the Minister felt hesitant in accepting on a previous Clause, but this is a much more serious affair, which involves the local authorities possibly in odium and in expense, and it would be only right that, in such a case, where large numbers of local authorities may be affected, there should be formal consultations. I see no difficulty in what the Minister stated on a previous Clause as to the exact meaning of consultations, but there should be no doubt that the consultations which I suggest should take place here should be proper consultations. The local authorities should be informed of what the Minister is proposing to do and should have an opportunity of making any representations they think fit. I hope that he will be prepared to accept the Amendment, which, as I have said, does not deal with consultations on the same footing as in a previous Clause, and that he will be prepared to allow the Amendment to be inserted in the Bill

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I agree with the hon. Member that this is a little different from the last occasion when we had that point about consultation before us, but I think—and I hope he agrees—that it is not wise to put into a Statute words which have to be construed by the courts unless we are quite certain what they mean. In exercising powers one would consult the interim development authority concerned. There are two sorts of direction involved, one general and the other individual. In the case of individual directions, the authority would, of course, always be consulted and must in the very nature of things be consulted because no Minister would wish to go to the length of using these powers if he could obtain his object by consultation and persuasion. In the case of general directions, if such are necessary, it would be extremely important that a Minister should on every occasion consult the associations of local authorities, which could bring together the combined wisdom of their constituent bodies. I freely undertake to do that in every proper case. The only thing that occurs to me is that knowing something of the variety of problems with which we and local authorities will be confronted in the future, it may be necessary to act very quickly in a special case, and, the Minister may be embarrassed unduly if it is statutorily laid down that he must go into consultation. Any Minister who would not consult to the full with those with whom he works—the local authorities—would not only be discourteous, but would be foolish. Therefore, I give the strongest possible assurance that there will be consultation in all proper cases.

Mr. Silkin: In view of that very positive assurance I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: I want to raise a point with regard to the sanction which the Minister reserves to himself—that of going to the courts in an action for mandamus.The Minister has told us, in answering my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin), that it may be necessary in many cases to act speedily but it is well known that law actions are susceptible to delays which would prevent

speedy action, and I therefore ask him why he has adopted this form of sanction rather than another, which is quite common in cases of this kind, namely, the taking of power unto himself to do things which he would seek by mandamus to compel an interim development authority to do?

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I think the reason is because power is given to the Minister to give general or special directions for controlling the exercise by interim development authorities of their powers under Subsection (3) of this Clause and also to give directions requiring them to exercise the said powers as respects any development specified in the directions in such a manner as may be so specified. That envisages a set of general directions and not a specification of the work to be done. If it were a question of the pulling down of an offending building it would be more appropriate that the Minister ought to take, in default, his own power. Where it is a question of direction, where you have work to be done in the final and concrete form by the local authority itself this is the only way I can see of enforcing it. As a practical matter I think the number of occasions when I shall have to go to court and ask for a mandamus will be extremely few, if any.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 6.—{Powers of Minister with respect to interim development applications.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 7, line 23, after "that," to insert:
(i) before giving any such directions the Minister shall consult, where any particular interim development authority will be affected, with that authority and, where interim development authorities generally will be affected, with such associations of local authorities as appear to him to be concerned and with any local authority with whom consultation appears to him to be desirable and(ii).
In moving this Amendment formally I assume that the Minister will be prepared to give an assurance regarding consultation in the same way as he has done previously, in which case I shall he happy to withdraw
the Amendment.

Mr; W. S. Morrison: Yes, Sir, I am prepared to give the assurance that all proper


consultation will be carried out by me in dealing with these matters. The Clause we are dealing with now gives power to the Minister with respect to interim development applications. In these cases one would have to have regard mainly to the public interest and it would be a case of the public interest being affected by something which it was proposed to be done by an interim development authority. Before a Minister acts he would have to have made up his mind that the public interest demanded his intervention and, accordingly, that presumes at the outset that the parties have moved at arm's length from each other before his intervention became necessary. But again, in so far as is possible, there will be consultation and discussion in order to remove any cause of disagreement. That is the appropriate way to go about it, and I can give that assurance.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed. "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Silkin: There is one point which may have escaped the attention of the Minister. Section 50 of the 1932 Act made special provision with regard to the administration of town planning m the county of London. By Sub-section (3) of that Section Metropolitan borough councils are entitled to be notified of certain applications that come before- the County Council. In the main, these are applications which deal with matters of principle and the Council are entitled to be notified not less than 14 days before the application is dealt with by the County Council. That affords a very useful measure of consultation, because borough councils are deemed to have local knowledge, particularly where the question of user is involved and that knowledge is very helpful to the County Council in arriving at a decision. The Minister, under this Clause, is seeking power to deal with certain classes of applications himself. Certain classes of cases may be taken out of the hands of the County Council and dealt with by the Minister in the national interest. In such cases it is right that the Minister should have the same advantage as the County Council of learning the views of the Metropolitan borough councils, and while it is too late to move an Amendment at this stage I w mild ask the Minister to con

sider, at a later stage, incorporating some provision which will safeguard the position of the Metropolitan boroughs by enabling them to be consulted about applications where the Minister himself is dealing with those applications.
This Clause will be to the great advantage of good town planning. More harm can often be done by granting applications than by refusing them. But it is assumed that the only person whose application has been refused has the right of appeal. There is no right of appeal by the general public or by other persons who may be injuriously affected by the granting of an application. This Clause does not directly afford the right of appeal to such persons, but it gives such persons the right to make representations to the Minister. The Minister can then in proper cases—I presume that that is the way in which this Clause will work—deal with the application himself or, if it relates to a series of cases, may take them in hand and deal with them, presumably with a view to refusing them if he thinks the local authority may be disposed to grant them. That is not very strong; it does not give people likely to be injuriously affected the right of appeal. They have no power to make formal representations to him asking him to deal with these applications.
There is no machinery by which they can state their ca*e to him and the only remedy then is that the Minister himself, if he is sufficiently conversant with the facts—he is not obliged to listen, but I presume he will—can say, "I will deal with the application myself." But in a large number of cases the Minister may be too late. The application may have been granted before the persons who are affected have had an opportunity A making representations to him. The application may have been granted and the people have no right of,appeal. I know that the Minister can then invoke Clause 4, by means of which he may himself revoke the decision of the local authority, but I cannot help feeling that all that is rather cumbersome and that it is perhaps better to give certain classes of persons a direct right of appeal to the Minister. Of the two alternatives, I think the second is simpler and better and, while I do not wish to be dogmatic about it, I hope the Minister will give the matter his consideration. I am quite sure' that if this right of appeal had existed in the


past, the nation would have been saved from many outrageous buildings and equally from outrageous users of buildings.
Finally, I want to raise the question of finance. The Minister under Clause 6 is assuming powers to deal with applications which would normally be dealt with by local authorities. Presumably he is doing that because the probabilities are that he will take a course of action which the local authority would not have taken. It is easy to see that in a number of cases his decision will impose on local authorities financial burdens which if left alone they would not have incurred. As I said on Second Reading, it may be quite right in many cases that the Minister should in a sense act in default of the local authority. He may take the right line where the local authority would have taken the wrong line. In such cases, and I am ready to admit they may be the majority of cases, it would be proper that the financial cost should fall on the local authority. But there may he other cases, possibly a considerable number, in which the Minister's outlook is one which the local authority cannot be expected and ought not to be expected to take.
The Minister has to look at the matter from the point of view of the national interest, whereas a local authority is only required and expected to look at planning in the interest of its own locality. National interest may require certain things to be done or not to be done which local interests would not require. The Minister may be quite right in looking at the wider interest but that may impose on the local authority additional cost which it ought not to bear. While I am on this subject, may I say that the same set of circumstances might apply under Clause 4 where the Minister may require a local authority to revoke the grant of an application—a scheme for which permission had already been granted—not because the local authority originally made a mistake, not even necessarily because conditions had changed in the area, but because it was decided that in the national interest it would be better that the application previously granted should be revoked. That, again, may involve a local authority in additional expense.
The question which local authorities are asking themselves is whether in these cases—I agree they may be limited—they can look for a contribution from the Minister.
We have been told that there may be.future Bills and it is a question which certainly will have to be dealt 'with. The question cannot be left where it is. It is not good government that the Minister should have power, without even consulting the local authority, to make decisions and that the local authority should then be called upon to bear the cost, when those decisions need not be decisions with which the local authority is concerned but decisions of national interest. I raised this point on Second Reading and I fully understood that the Parliamentary Secretary was not in a position then to give a final answer. I said then that I would raise the matter again in Committee, and I hope that the Minister is in a better position to-day to give some indication of what will be the policy of the Government on this very important matter.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I should like an opportunity of looking further into the case of the Metropolitan boroughs which the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin),mentioned. It is a new case to me and I should like time to consider it. I agree that the procedure under Clause 6 might, perhaps, preferably have been couched in the form of an appeal but the difficulty was to define who could appeal and who could not. That was very difficult as a matter of drafting and we shall have to try td do the best we can with the Bill as drafted. I would like to say a few words upon the question of finance. That also is difficult and I can well understand local authorities being anxious to know what will happen to them.
In the first place, I would like to point out that the number of cases, whether under Clause 4 or under Clause 6, which will involve a charge on a local authority is very limited. That does not mean they should not be dealt with, but the. Minister's powers do not cover so wide an area as may at first appear. Moreover, not all acts of the Minister will attract compensation. That will shear off a certain number. Then, as the hon. Member for Peckham was candid enough to admit, there will be cases where the Minister will be doing something which a good local authority ought to have done. In that case the local authority could quite well be called upon to bear the cost. Then I apprehend that a good deal of action taken under these Clauses in the national


interest, will be in respect of services which already attract Government grants. Roads, for example, may provide a very large part of the field in which central interference will be necessary. Roads attract grants. Then there are such matters as housing, which attracts very heavy grants, education—the provision of school premises, and so on. These also are matters in which Ministerial interference is likely and in those cases Ministerial action would be considered in determining what should be the proper rate of grant. There will be also the problem of the acquisition of land in reconstruction areas, that is to say areas which require reconstruction either because of enemy action or because for some other reason they require rebuilding.
That problem will also cover a good deal of the possible field, because it is quite possible that restrictive action will be taken by the local authority at the Minister's request as a preliminary to the acquisition of land for the purpose of reconstruction. If that were so, I have no doubt that costs of that character would be part of the problem to be covered by discussion. That leaves only I think a very small residuum of cases where the local authority can be affected by the operation of either Clause 4 or Clause 6. If there is subsequently imposed some general restriction on the use of land that also will involve discussion between the Government and local authorities as to how far they will be affected. I have no doubt we can discuss these matters on a basis of equity and arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.

Mr. Silkin: The Minister has not dealt with the specific case where restrictions may be imposed, quite properly, in the national interest, which would involve the local authority in additional expense.

Mr. Morrison: We should have to see what was the exact proportion. If the matter concerned roads, for example, we should have to take into account the road grant. In other cases we shall have to discuss how the matter can be solved and I hope we shall arrive at a fair and just conclusion.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 7.—Compensation for abortive
expenditure in certain cases.)

Sir A. Maitland: I beg to move, in page 8, line 24, after "has" to insert
after the date upon which the permission was granted and".
This Clause deals with compensation for abortive expenditure in certain cases and Sub-section (2) provides for cases where permission for the development of land is revoked or modified. In that case an amount equal to the expenditure incurred is payable as compensation. That, of course, is reasonable and no objection can be taken so long as "expenditure" is limited to expenditure incurred after the date upon which permission was granted. For example, an application might be made for permission to develop land by erecting new buildings. It is suggested that if permission has been granted and subsequently revoked the applicant shall be entitled to be repaid the expenditure incurred on the new buildings, but not the expenditure incurred in the demolition of buildings before the permission is granted. The object of my Amendment is to limit the compensation to expenditure incurred in pursuance of permission and to exclude expenditure before permission was granted. Where this is done, it is fair that an applicant should receive compensation in respect of the preparation of plans, although the plans were prepared before the date of permission. That is the object of the further Amendment which I have on the Paper to add to Sub-section (3), which deals with expenditure incurred in preparation of plans, a proviso that such expenditure may be included although it was incurred before permission was granted.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I think my hon. Friend has not given sufficient force to the words already in the Sub-section. The expenditure which the applicant is able to recover is expenditure incurred in carrying out any work that is rendered abortive by the Order. The Order is an Order canceling a permission. If a building has been taken down before the application for permission has been made at all, that is expenditure which has taken place in any event, and I should have thought that that would not be recoverable in the ordinary way under the terms of the Clause as it stands. I should have thought it right to leave it to the tribunal, before whom this


would come, to consider what it is that has been rendered abortive by the Order. I should be very reluctant, without considering all conceivable cases, to amend these words so as to exclude from consideration of the tribunal what would, properly, come within those words. The particular case given by the hon. Member seems to be a case of expenditure which has taken place in demolishing a building before there was any application for permission to develop, and I cannot see that an, order to cancel a licence would render that particular expenditure abortive. For that reason I think it is better not to alter the Clause as suggested but to leave it as it stands. I am quite willing that we should further consider whether an improvement in language is desirable, but, as at present advised, I think that we are safer in leaving the words as they stand.

Sir A. Maitland: My hon. Friend seems to think that the Clause already covers the kind of case I have in mind. On his assurance that he will look into it again, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed,." That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Rostron Duckworth: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether expenditure incurred in obtaining an option, and the option itself, on land affected by the revocation of the Order can be recovered?

Mr. W. S. Morrison: It is difficult to answer about an option if it refers to work which is rendered abortive by the operation of the Order. I should have to look into that. I could not give an answer straight away.

Mr. Jewson: In regard to compensation recoverable under the Clause, has the interim development committee any recourse to the Government?

Mr. Morrison: I have previously dealt at some length with the relations between the Government and the interim development authority. This Clause does not refer to the Government at all. It refers only to the relations between the applicant and the local interim development authority.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 8.—(Provisions as to joint,committees.)

Sir A. Maitland: I beg to move, in page 9, line 5, after "delegate" to insert:
to their constituent authorities or any of them or".
By Sub-section (2) a joint committee of local authorities are to be empowered to delegate any of their functions to a sub-committee. There may be cases where the functions should be delegated to one or more of the local authorities of which the joint committee is constituted. The object of the Amendment is to authorities delegation to constituent authorities in such cases.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: The Clause provides for the creation of joint authorities for the purposes of surveying and planning a wider area than is comprised in their own districts. It also confers upon them executive powers to act instead of being merely advisory. That being the object of the Clause, it would to some extent be defeated if the joint authority, having been brought together, was permitted to delegate its functions to one of the constituent authorities. If the authority which is being created by delegation upwards from the constituent bodies then proceeded to delegate its functions downwards, it would defeat the object for which they were brought together. Where a joint committee has been formed under Section 4 of the Act of 1932, or an authority has been added to a joint committee by an Order under Section 5 of that Act, the delegation of planning powers to a constituent authority would defeat the whole purpose of Orders of that kind. As regards interim powers which rested in a joint committee under an Order of the Minister, the object of the Order would again be defeated if the joint committee were to hand back their powers to a constituent authority. The object of the Clause is to do the reverse of that. It is to bring people together so that they may take a conjoint view over a wide area, and to permit them to delegate their functions after they have been brought laboriously together would not be good administration.

Mr. G. Griffiths: Is it not possible for this Amendment to be accepted? If the delegates have been appointed by local authorities, there is nothing wrong in those delegates consulting their parent authorities.The governing authorities


which appointed the delegates would then be able to know what was going on and they themselves could then if they cared delegate to a sub-committee. I think that the proposal in the Bill is going the wrong way about it, and that the Minister is wrong and I am right on this point.

Mr. Morrison: I will try and convince the hon. Member why I think I am right. The joint committee is given powers to delegate its functions to sub-committees, but those sub-committees will still partake of the character of the joint authorities and still carry out the functions for which the authority was created, that is to say, to take a wide view of the area of more than one authority. If instead of delegating to a sub-committee representing all the authorities, the joint committee were to delegate to one of the constituent authorities, you would be losing the benefit of the whole operation and form of the joint body. There is no reason why consultation with the parent bodies should not be intimate and frequent, so that the members who are sitting on the joint authority will be well aware of the views of their parent authorities. If my hon. Friend will reflect, he will see that once we have created a joint body for the purpose of taking a joint and not a narrow view, it would be the height of folly to let that body split up again into the constituent authorities.

Sir A. Maitland: I appreciate what the Minister says, and I shall ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. The Amendment was not for the purpose of providing that there should be a large delegation on the lines suggested by my right hon. Friend, but there may be cases where the joint committee would feel that the best form of sub-committee was a constituent authority. This might apply only to a minority of cases, but I thought it would be wise to give this power in order to meet their circumstances. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will look at the matter again before the next stage 'of the Bill.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. G. Griffiths: I beg to move, in page 9, line 1, to leave out Sub-section (3).
Section 4 of the 1932 Act provides:
If it appears to the Minister to be expedient that two or more authorities, being local authorities or county councils, should act

jointly in the preparation or adoption of a scheme, he may, at the request of any one or more of them by order provide for the constitution of a joint committee for the purpose and transfer to the committee any powers, other than the power to borrow money or levy a rate; and duties which any of the constituent authorities might exercise and discharge for the purpose: Provided that, before making any such order, the Minister shall, unless all the authorities affected thereby assent to the making thereof, cause a local inquiry to be held.
This Sub-section provides that the Minister can make an Order for a joint committee without consultation with the constituent authorities. I am at a loss to understand why there are not more Members present on the benches opposite, because they have been crying out for some time against the powers that are given to Departments in a kind of underhand way. They have moved Prayers. Indeed, there have been many prayer meetings on those benches, and I have seen some Members praying who, I thought, had never prayed in their lives. They have come here for hours and prayed. Yet they are not present when the Minister is seeking, as he is doing in this Sub-section, to appoint- joint committees without consulting the local authorities.
It is all right our making laws here, but we are not the people who carry out the laws. If we are going to curtail the powers of local authorities, they will be in future up against Parliament more than they have been in the past. The Minister has been, I will not say lenient, but very kind to the hon. Member for Peckham( Mr. Silkin). He argued in a nice, quiet, lucid way and captivated the Minister, who said they would consider the matter. I do not want the Miruster to run his head against local authorities. He will find they are bitterly opposed to the taking away of their powers. I ask that he should leave Section 4 of the Act of 1932 in this Bill. He must remember that he is the first town planning Minister, and the future will depend a great deal upon him. His sins will hang upon him and upon his children for ever. I am a bit older than he is, although I do not look it, and I would give him a little advice. I ask him to reconsider the position, Ere-cause the local authorities are against the withdrawal of the powers they had under the Acts of 1932 and 1933.

Mr. Mander: I hope that my right hon. Friend will not respond to the advice given him by the hon. Member for Hems-worth (Mr. G. Griffiths).I have no


doubt that in the vast. majority of in- stances local authorities do join together of their own free will to form joint authorities, but I believe that this new power will be of very real value and is of the greatest importance in connection with planning. There will be instances where it will be essential to have this power if properly- constituted bodies are to be set up, and it will be impossible to act under existing legislation. While we all appreciate that local authorities have their feelings, there are interests which are even higher than those of local authorities.

Mr. Hutchinson: I am sorry to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths), but I hope the Minister will not give way, because in my view this Sub-section is one of the most important things in this Bill. Earlier to-day pressure was being put upon the Minister to propose some rearrangement of the areas of local authorities for planning purposes. This provision gives him power to go a very long way in that direction. It happens that areas which are suitable for planning are very often unsuitable for other services, and this Clause gives the Minister power to constitute an area out of the areas of a number of different authorities if in his view such an area is suitable for planning purposes. The hon. Member for Hems-worth has said that the Minister ought not to do this unless he receives a request from one of the local authorities. There may be many reasons why that request is not made. One of the reasons may be that in a particular area which is suitable for planning under a joint committee of this nature there may be two or three authorities, one of whom desires that a joint committee should be constituted and would be prepared to make the request but refrains from doing so because it knows that the request would not be in accordance with the wishes of its neighbours. Local authorities are often unwilling to take a step of that kind if they think it will be regarded by neighbouring authorities as an attempt to trespass upon the rights of other authorities. That is very often the reason why a request is not made in a case where it really ought to be made. This Clause will, enable the Minister to get over that difficulty and, without reference to the authorities concerned, to constitute a number of authorities into a joint planning committee if he

considers that the area comprised within their districts is suitable for joint planning purposes.

Mr. G. Griffiths: The Minister will still have that power after he has consulted them. My Amendment only asks that if one local authority objects to the combination of three or four authorities, it shall he allowed to appeal to the Minister. The Minister can then act as he chooses. All we ask is that the Minister, before he brings down the hammer, will allow us to open our mouths to put in a protest if we wish to do so.

Mr. Henry Strauss: My hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson) have given good reasons why my right hon. Friend is unable to accept the Amendment moved with such vigour by my. hon. Friend the Member for Hems worth (Mr. G. Griffiths), whose last intervention showed that he has not clearly in mind the effect of his Amendment. This has nothing to do with consultation.. It is not a question of a Minister consulting the local authorities, but of whether a request from an individual authority shall be a necessary condition precedent to the Minister's power to form joint committees. For the reasons given by my hon. and learned Friend, there are very good reasons why it should not be a. condition precedent. My hon. and learned Friend gave the case where one authority wanted to make a request and knew that it ought to be made, but hesitated to do so because they thought it would be resented by another authority concerned. The case is even stronger than my hon. and learned Friend's example. There are cases in which, we believe, all the authorities would welcome the formation of a joint committee, but for reasons of prestige or similar reasons, every one of them hesitates to make the first request.
Therefore my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment need not have any anxiety that we are going to do things which are liable to be resented by the people whom we are combining. It is obvious that unless there would be harmony inside the combination, we should not do much good by making the joint committee. In most cases we hope to get a useful, and even an enthusi


astic, joint committee, and if the Minister exercised his power. he would get the support of the vast majority of the local authorities concerned. For those reasons, and the reasons given by those who have supported the action of the Government, I ask the hon. Member to consider withdrawing his Amendment.

Mr. G. Griffiths: Because I have not got anybody else to be a Teller with me, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Mander: I would ask the Minister to say something to satisfy the anxieties felt by some people who are anxious to know whether the Minister will interfere with authorities who are doing this work of planning in a manner generally approved by public opinion. I would ask for an assurance that it is not intended that the Minister should take over the direction of planning from those authorities but should rather encourage and stimulate them in the good work which they are doing. No doubt the Minister will 'act differently in the case of authorities who have not shown any desire to go in for town planning and will bring in his power from above. Another point about which there is some concern is whether, when the Minister is setting up a joint planning authority, the authorities concerned are likely to be consulted. There is some anxiety that before any action is taken by the Minister he should consult the local authorities that are likely to be involved. I imagine that there can be only one answer to the question, but I put the point because I know there is feeling on the matter, and in order that we may know the views of the Government.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I can reassure the hon. Member on both points. As regards consultation in forming a joint committee, we should be quite mad if we formed joint committees on paper without looking at the districts, areas and authorities concerned. Of course there will be consultation; in fact, there has been a good deal of consultation already. I imagine that a great amount will be done by agreement with all concerned. As to interference with local authorities, whatever I say will

make me liable to attack from some quarter, but I believe that this Committee and public opinion will support me when I say that the Minister will interfere with local authorities so far and so far only as it is necessary for him to do so, in order that he shall discharge efficiently the functions that Parliament has given to him. He is responsible for securing consistency and continuity in the framing and execution of a national policy with respect to the development and use of land, and he cannot rid himself of that responsibility. One of the great advantages of the scheme of the Bill is that never again will it be possible, when some outrageous development is brought to the attention of the Government by a Member of this House, for the Minister to get up and say, "This has nothing to do with me, but is solely the concern of the local authority." Apart from his statutory duty the Minister 'wishes to use fully the knowledge and the enthusiasm and the work of the local authorities.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clauses 9 and io ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE II.—(Construction and application of certain provisions of principal Act.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Earl Winterton (Horsham and Worthing): I would like to call attention to a phrase in Sub-section (3), in which the following provision is made:
In the following provisions of the principal Act, references to that Act shall, unless the 'context otherwise requires, be construed as including references to this Act.
I do not know, and possibly some legal Member of the Committee will be able to tell me, whether that is common form in an Act of Parliament of this kind. If it is, I suggest, where there are so many Sub-sections of the principal Act concerned, that it might quite likely give rise to litigation. Who is to determine—is it the Minister or the courts—whether the context of the Act otherwise requires? Is it really necessary to draft a Bill in this way?

The Attorney-General: There are many precedents for this phraseology, though I must confess that I have not checked


through all these references in the Bill; but it is very common. I do not think in practice that it gives rise to any doubtful question which needs recourse to the courts. For instance, the fundamental Act of this House which deals with the interpretation of Statutes says that plural includes singular, "unless the context otherwise requires." Sometimes it may be put into a Bill out of excessive caution. but where you are enacting a general series of provisions, applying as in this case an earlier Act to the interpretation of a later Act, you should use words which prevent your applying any of those provisions in a manner fairly contrary to the context in which the words occur in the original Act. I have cases where it was quite plainly inapplicable and where obviously the words in the earlier Act taken in their context could only mean that the words were not intended to apply in the later Act. We can be absolutely certain that if there were no case which needed these words to preserve it, then it would be unnecessary to put them in. In any case, I will mention the point to the draftsman, and he can look at the words and see whether they are necessary.

Earl Winterton: I am afraid I am not very satisfied with the answer of the Attorney-General. I thank him for promising to look into the matter, but I would call his attention to a rather substantial point. We are told that this is common form. I know it is, but whether it is common form or not is not the point at issue, which is whether care has been taken, not by the draftsman—because it is the business of the Government and the Minister—to be satisfied that circumstances are not likely to arise in which a legal issue would be involved. It is intolerable that the Committee should be asked to pass legislation which might give rise to legal action, because a local authority or anyone else might have reasonable cause to go to a court in order to get an interpretation of the common practice phrase "unless the context otherwise requires." While I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his promise, may I say that I hope in future, where we have Clauses of this kind to consider, he will see that no such danger as I have indicated can arise? The well-known case of "male or female" where you say one or the other, as the context requires, does not arise here. I do not

want to be critical, but would the Attorney-General be good enough to satisfy himself before the next stage of the Bill that no such situation as I have mentioned is likely to arise, namely, the possibility of litigation, when it can be avoided by greater clarification in the Measure?

The Attorney-General: The Noble Lord said he did not want to be critical, but in fact he was extremely critical, and all I can say is—I hope he will take this in the spirit in which I say it—that this is common form. There are perhaps half-a-dozen cases where the Act plainly otherwise requires, and it would be merely complicating the Bill and introducing unnecessary delay to deal with them more specifically instead of leaving them to be covered by these words. I will do my best to be ready to inform the House on all matters, but if my Noble Friend wants specific assurances of all the detailed cases which might be covered by a Bill, I should be grateful on a future occasion if he would give me notice or put down an Amendment. It is very difficult on the question of the Clause standing part to be ready to answer questions on every possible point of the Bill.

Earl Winterton: I cannot possibly give any such undertaking, which would be quite contrary to the practice of this House. I am now going to be very critical. It is the duty of a Minister to be acquainted with the Clauses of a Bill which he is asking the Committee to pass.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clauses 12 and 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Preservation of trees during interim period.)

The Minister may, for securing the protection of existing amenities, make general or special interim development orders with respect to the preservation of single trees and groups of trees, and, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, such orders may—

(i) include provisions with respect to specifying areas of woodland as areas to be protected;

(ii) provide for the registration by the interim development authority of such single trees of such description as may be specified in the order;

(iii) provide for the cancellation of registration of any tree or the cessation of the application of the provisions of any such order to any group of trees;

(iv) provide for a right of appeal to the Minister against any decision of an interim development authority in relation to any tree.—[Mr. Douglas.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Douglas (Battersea, North): I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This Clause deals with the preservation of trees during the interim development. There is power under existing legislation to make provision for the preservation of woodlands or groups of trees, or even isolated trees in the scheme, and such provision being made in the scheme and the scheme becoming operative, then the position is safeguarded. But there is no means of securing the preservation of trees until that point is reached, and therefore this Clause is intended to give powers to secure the preservation of trees during the interim development period. This is a matter of very great importance, especially at the present time, when woods are being' felled to a very large extent and therefore there is very great temptation to cut down trees which may have some commercial value but which may at the same time have a very high degree of amenity value. Those which are most important from this point of view are very often the product of a great many years of growth, and it is impossible to replace them except with very great care and in a very long period of time, and therefore I hope that the Minister will favourably consider this. Many of us are familiar with cases in which development has taken place with a ruthless disregard of trees existing on the site, where with just a little care and forethought in the planning all or most of them could have been preserved with very great advantage to the people who will hereafter live in the houses built. It seems very desirable that some steps should be taken during the interim development period in order to safeguard these amenities. The Clause is drawn in the most moderate terms. It gives a right of appeal to the Minister by anybody who is dissatisfied with the step taken by the local authority, and I sincerely hope he will accept it.

Mr. Muff: I wish to support the Second Reading of this Clause. It is a reasonable Clause; it should appeal to a reasonable Minister. One delightful and most interesting feature in the discussion of this Bill was the great

peroration of the Parliamentary Secretary of this new Department. I shall remember it as long as I have a mind to remember. It was beautiful, I thought. The Minister traversed the whole of the British Isles in wishing to preserve the timber. He described how vital it was that we should preserve the timber of Wensleydale, of Pembrokeshire; in fact, if I had to go through all the geographical districts touched upon in that great peroration, I should unduly take up the time of this Committee, and I do not wish to do so. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister, or to the Parliamentary Secretary, or both. We have had the peroration; I hope we shall have the pep, and that he will accept the Clause.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: With the object that the movers of this Clause have in view I think we must all be in sympathy. We all deplore, too, that the beauty of our countryside in the past has been marred by careless felling, and how, under the harsh necessities of war, we are forced to cut some of our noblest trees. My trouble is that to accept this Clause in its present form would be outside the scope of this Bill, which deals with interim development and is framed on the Act of 1932, with words having the same meaning as they. had in the Act of 1932. Development, in that Act, as I pointed out in my Second Reading speech, is concerned roughly with buildings and that sort of thing; it does not consider agriculture to be development, which I consider to be wrong. Neither does it consider woodlands and so on as development, and I am afraid that this Clause will not fit into the structure of the Bill as it is at the present time.
There is one gleam of hope in this matter. As the Committee is aware, there is a very strict control by the Ministry of Supply on the felling of trees and the disposal of them* for sale. Under Defence Regulation 68 they made two Orders prohibiting the sale or purchase of growing trees for felling except under the authority of a licence from the Minister. There is also a prohibition against felling trees of over 1,000 cubic feet. We have got into close touch with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply on this matter, and they do what they can to ensure that when there is this necessity for war purposes for the felling of timber it is done in a way which is least harmful to amenities. Harmful in any case it must be when


trees are felled, but we shall do our best to limit the damage which war is causing to our countryside. When we can pass from the stage of this Bill, framed. on the Act of 1932, and its phraseology bearing the same meaning as in that Act, where development really means building, we shall have this point very firmly in view, and when I get a chance of introducing further and more positive legislation on this subject, I will try to give effect in that legislation to the motive which inspires the movers of this new, Clause. I regret that, owing to the form of this Bill, it is not possible to accept it in this Bill.

Earl Winterton: I also sympathise very much with my hon. Friends who down this Clause, but I am not sure that what they seek would be best carried out by the Clause. I do not symptathise—I apologise to the Attorney-General for again being critical—with the answer given by the Minister. That answer is wholly insufficient to meet the needs of the case. It is difficult to do more than give a hint of why I think so, because to do more would be out of Order. I am not sure that I can follow what the right hon. Gentleman said without putting myself out of Order. This question is far more important than the question of what the Minister of Supply, is doing or is not doing, as the right hon. Gentleman, having been Minister of Agriculture, knows. It is not only a question of amenities, but the whole question of timber supplies in England', and how they can be increased.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: The proposed Clause starts with the words:
The Minister may, for securing the protection of existing amenities, make general or special interim development orders.
I think, therefore, that my Noble Friend is going beyond what the movers of the Clause intended in suggesting that the Clause is concerned with something other than amenity.

Earl Winterton: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his very courteous interruption. The point where I thought the right hon. Gentleman was, I will not say out of Order, but very near the bounds of Order, was that at which he proceeded to tell us what the Ministry of Supply were doing. What has that to do with the amenities of the

country? The Ministry of Supply is an ad hoc body with power to cut timber. This Clause suggests steps to protect the amenities of the countryside in any question where trees—I might say, afforestation—is concerned. What I wanted was some assurance that the whole question of forestry in England—we can only discuss amenity here—was being properly considered by some Government Department. The only thing that the right hon. Gentleman could shy was that the Ministry of Supply did have some regard to amenities; but the Ministry of Supply is a supply Ministry, it has nothing to do with amenities. Could he not give an assurance that he will consider, before the Bill finally leaves this House, and after consultation—I would make a very strong point of consultation—with the Chairman of the Forestry Commission, how he can deal with this most important subject?. I would press for some such assurance. I agree that I do not think that the Clause in its present form is satisfactory, but the subject is one of great importance, which I do not think was answered in the right hon. Gentleman's speech.

Mr. Mander: The speech of the Minister raised a point which I would ask you, Major Milner, to be good enough to deal with. He seemed to suggest that the whole discussion was out of Order. He used words which suggested that this Clause was outside the scope of the Bill. If that were so, I suggest, you would not have called it. I ask you to be good enough to inform the Commitee whether the discussion is in Order or not.

The Chairman: The right hon. Gentleman did, no doubt, quite accidentally, reflect on the Chair. I considered whether the Clause was within the scope of the Bill, and, after some hesitation, I decided that it should be called. The discussion may proceed on that basis.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: Permit me to say, Major Milner, that I had no intention of reflecting in the slightest on the Chair. My use of the expression "outside the scope of the Bill" was intended to apply to my argument that the Bill is founded on the 1932 Act, and that the 1932 Act made it impossible to bring this Clause in. I had no intent of reflecting on the Chair, and if I did so, I apologise.

Mr. Lawson: We are under an obligation to my hon. Friend for introducing this new Clause. He has touched upon a matter which is vital to the people of this country, and particularly to those who live in industrial areas. If the right hon. Gentleman cannot accept the Clause in its present form, he might, as the Noble Lord has said, give very serious consideration to this matter between now and the time when the Bill goes to another place, or else get an alteration made in another place. I have wanted to deal with this subject for a long time. It was my lot, along with quite a number of industrial Members, to live for a number of years in a colliery district where if one saw a tree one felt that one was in a jungle. The deprivation of not being able to see trees and such features is one of the bitter memories of my life. I then went to another part of my county where there were small clumps and estates, where people had spent the better part of a century in building up woods. It was almost like being born again to see those trees. That is an experience which is not common in Southern England, particularly in the rural areas, but it has a vital effect on the outlook of some of the people of this country.
Timber is now badly needed. We are seeing the wholesale slaughter of clumps of trees in the partof the country from which I come. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Ministry of Supply have powers in this matter, but, if so, those powers are not very actively used. So far as I can see, the country is being cleaned up, and very few trees are being left. We understand the reason for that, but we want to see that everything possible is done to save a few clumps for amenity purposes. It is not sufficient to have a great forest 20 or 30 miles away. That is useful; it has certain values; but we want to see the replanting of the clumps which are destroyed, so that the boys of this generation and of future generations can go bird-nesting, climbing trees, and swinging about, just as boys in the past have done. If the right hon. Gentleman can at some future stage of the Bill accept the principle of this Clause he will not only render a great service to town and country planning but also to the country generally, in this and future generations.

Mr. Douglas: I am rather surprised that the Minister should have adopted towards

this Clause a narrow, legalistic, and pedantic attitude. He declined to accept it, on the ground that it does not deal with interim development. But surely this is an incident of interim development. Are the amenities which are adjacent to a house to be entirely disregarded during the interim development period? Is it no concern of the Minister that these amenities may be destroyed during that period? This Bill gives power to restrict interim development, to prevent buildings from being erected. Is it suggested that it is not important, where steps are taken to preserve amenity by preventing wrong building from taking place, that steps should also be taken to preserve amenity by preventing trees from being sold? The Minister has suggested that the Ministry of Supply have powers to prevent trees from being felled; but is it true that those powers extend to trees of all kinds? Do they not apply only to trees which are valuable for timber purposes? Some of the trees which it is desirable to preserve for amenity may have no value as timber. Have we any assurance that the Minister of Supply directs his attention to the question of preserving trees from the point of view of town planning and amenity, or does he direct his attention to this problem from a totally different angle? Surely, it is not the function of the Ministry of Supply to determine town planning questions. The powers of the Ministry of Supply will come to an end at some stage—let us hope an early stage—and what would be left to fill this gap? Are we to understand that the Minister has no desire to fill it? If he intends to fill it by some other Bill which is to be introduced shortly, then it is a different matter. We would not be so insistent upon this point, but he has given no pledge to the Committee that he has any intention of that kind.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: Perhaps I ought to say a word or two in reply to the observations which have been addressed to me, as it is obvious that the Committee feel keenly on this point. I have heard their views on the matter and I agree that it is very desirable indeed to get machinery to enable our trees to be protected from the amenity point of view. I was trying to point out to my hon. Friend that in the way he seeks to secure it, you cannot 3o it by an interim development Order, using the word "development" in the sense that it is used in the Bill and in the 1932 Act.

Mr. Douglas: Why not?

Mr. Morrison: Because an interim development Order is limited to allow development of applications for permission to carry out development, and development is in the Act to which I have referred, in Section 53:
'Development,' in relation to any land, includes any building operations or rebuilding operations, and any use of the land Or any building thereon for a purpose which is different from the purpose for which the land or building was last being used:
Provided that—
The use of land for the purpose of agriculture, whether as arable, meadow, pasture ground or orchard, or for the purposes of a plantation or a wood, or for the growth of saleable underwood, and the use for any of those purposes of any building occupied together with land so used, shall not be deemed to be a development of that land or building.
That is my difficulty here.

Mr. Douglas: Let me put a simple case. Suppose somebody applies for permission to develop a piece of land as a building estate and that piece of land has trees on it, and in course of development of plans he submits he is going to destroy all these trees, is that development or not?

Mr. Morrison: I should say that within the meaning of the Act the 'building of houses is development. But you have to look at each case on its merits, and if it meant the wholesale destruction of beautiful trees, one should look at it very carefully.

Earl Winterton: That is our whole point.

Mr. Morrison: That is the whole point. In so far as the trees would be cut down for the purposes of building houses it is quite another thing, but the Clause itself goes to the extent of preserving single groups of trees and parks and so on which would not be affected by development at all. If it were merely a question of taking into consideration the amenities of trees before land is needed, then that is something to be looked at, but the powers sought in this Clause will not fit. I will give an assurance to the Corn- mittee—I am much interested in what has been said by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton)—that I will have another look at this and see whether there is anything we can

do about it. I am sure that we cannot do anything in this Clause, but we will see what we can do. If we cannot do it in this Bill, we shall very carefully consider what powers are necessary in future legislation to enable us to carry out this beneficent object.

Earl Winterton: We should all be grateful to hear of my right hon. Friend's willingness to agree to the suggestion that he should consult with his right hon. and gallant Friend the Chairman of the Forestry Commission, as it really is very important, for the Forestry Commission own a great deal of land within areas around London which is likely to be subject to this Bill and to interim or development Orders. It is very important that he should consult with the Chairman of the Forestry Commission and see whether something can be done.

Mr. Morrison: I have already had several close consultations with the Chairman of the Forestry Commission on the general aspect that my right hon. Friend has raised, and I shall of course continue to co-operate as closely as I can with this very important body from my point of view.

Mr. Douglas: In view of the statement which the Minister has made, and in the hope that during the course of his consideration of this matter he will devote a little attention to the question of whether the definition of development should not be extended somewhat more widely in order to deal with matters of this nature, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Clause.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

NEW CLAUSE.—(control of architectural treatment of building during interim period.)

An interim development authority during the period of interim development may, as respects any particular building or part of a building, or any group of buildings within their district, or as respects any particular area within their district, specify the general form, design and external appearance, including size and height, to which that building or part or group of buildings shall conform, or to which buildings in that area shall individually or collectively conform, as the case may be, and in granting any interim development application the authority may impose such conditions as they think fit to secure such general form, design and external appearance.—[Mr. Silkin]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
Whatever the right hon. Gentleman may think of the merits or demerits of this particular new Clause, it has not the objection he put forward to the previous new Clause. It really does deal with development in accordance with the definition of the principal Act. The new Clause has two purposes. One is to apply control of architectural treatment of buildings during the interim period. At the present time there is no control over architectural treatment of buildings in the interim period. Under Section 12 of the principal Act schemes may include provisions for regulating the design and external appearance of buildings, subject to a right of appeal. But unless those provisions are included in the scheme, there is no power under development procedure to deal with the design and external appearance. This Clause seeks to introduce into the interim development period this amount of control. If you are really going to build a city of beautiful buildings, you have to see that the control is applied during the time the buildings go up. The vast majority of new buildings will go up under interim development procedure, and unless you have power to see that design and architectural treatment are concerned, you will find that you are too late when the scheme comes into operation and you hate been given the power to deal with these things under the scheme.
Secondly, in any case—and this is the more important—the existing control which can be imported into the scheme is inadequate for the purpose of enabling adequate architectural treatment to be secured. What is wanted is the power to enable areas to be adequately architecturally treated. For instance, many London squares have been completely spoilt because it has not been possible to secure comprehensive architectural treatment of them. Local authorities have been compelled to deal with each application on its merits, and it has not been found possible under the existing law to lay down comprehensive architectural treatment for the whole of a square. One has only to go to squares in London where new building has taken place to see the effect of the absence of such powers. This applies to squires; it may also apply to whole streets. I hope it may apply to rebuilding in the precincts

of this House. Abingdon Street and Millbank lend themselves to some form of comprehensive architectural treatment, and I submit that even if existing powers were imported into the scheme, it would not be possible to ensure that the whole of Abingdon Street and the portion of Millbank that we would like to deal with, could be dealt with comprehensively. I hope the Minister will see his way to accept this Clause or words which will convey its effect, in order to give local authorities this power, particularly during the interim period.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I have complete sympathy with the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) in his desire for far greater architectural control and the exercise of that control by local authorities, but I am surprised at the extent to which he says our powers are, at present, limited. In the case of a London square, for example, if the planning authority concerned—the London County Council—had decided on what it thought should be the general Scheme of architectural control of rebuilding any building in that area, and had refused an application to put up a building which did not comply with their ideas, and the matter had come up before the Minister on appeal, it is quite wrong to think that the Minister would not consider the merits of the authority's scheme. It is the duty of the interim development authority to deal with what they think will be the provisions of the scheme when dealing with interim development applications. I quite agree that some deplorable things have been allowed to happen but I cannot believe that that is inevitable under the Bill as it stands. As I told the hon. Member on the Second Reading, the opinion of my Department and its advisers is that local authorities powers and our powers are not limited to this extent. The Minister's powers are at present limited entirely by the fact that his jurisdiction is confined to those cases which come before us on appeal, and nothing could come before us on appeal unless an interim development authority had rejected an application for the development of land.

Mr. John Dugdale: May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary a question? Supposing a local authority refused to allow a building to be erected in St.


James' Square because it is considered to be too high, would his Ministry support their refusal?

Mr. Strauss: Obviously I cannot say what our decision would be in any individual case; it would be highly improper for me to do so, but if an interim development authority had refused an application on that ground the matter would come before us on appeal and I cannot conceive any Minister not thinking the local authority's reason for their refusal on architectural grounds relevant to his decision on appeal. From Section 12 (1) (c) of the principal Act and Section 19 (1) (c) it seems to me quite clear that an interim development authority with proper care for urban amenities including architecture has powers far less limited than would appear from the speech of the hon. Member for Peckham. I cannot accept his Amendment in its present form but I will repeat the undertaking I gave on the Second Reading. No one is more anxious than I to secure decent architecture in our cities. I know that the Hon. Member and the authority of which he is a member have skilful architectural advice. The Minister will certainly examine any representations made showing where the present Act is in need of amendment and I think this is a matter on which we shall undoubtedly desire to obtain the assistance of the Royal Fine Art Commission. I do not agree That under the existing law there is no power to control buildings put up in the interim period.

Mr. Silkin: The Parliamentary Secretary says he accepts what is sought to be achieved by this Clause but believes that it can be achieved under this law. Is that his position?

Mr. Strauss: I am quite clear that if an interim development authority have formed a scheme in their own minds for the architectural treatment of a Square they can, in the interim development period, use their powers to refuse an application, and that matter can be considered by the Minister, whose duty it will be to consider what the appellant and the authority say on the matter. The appellant may say that the authority's architectural scheme is a bad one. The interim development authority can use arguments based on their proposed architectural treatment.

Mr. Douglas: The Committee is in considerable doubt as to the result of the statement which has just been made on behalf of the Minister. The Parliamentary Secretary has told us of the pledge he gave during the. Debate on the Second Reading of the Bill. Here are the terms of the pledge which he gave to the House on that occasion:
I can assure him that the possible strengthening of the law, if it needs strengthening, to meet the point to which he gave expression, will certainly be considered by my right hon. Friend."-[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th May, 1943; col. 582, Vol. 389.]
Will he say definitely whether he considers that the law needs to be strengthened, or whether he thinks it is adequate and sufficient at the present time? That is the issue which faces us. It is not sufficient to try and evade the point by saying there are certain details in the new Clause which may be the subject of differences of interpretation. We want to get to the substance of this question. Are there sufficient powers now to secure that in the interim development period buildings which are unsuitable and undesirable shall not be erected? If the local authority, for example, refuses an application for interim development, upon the ground that it considers a certain street or square or other place ought to be laid out upon a uniformity of design, elevation and so on, is that the kind of argument which the Minister is going to consider a satisfactory argument, supposing it is put forward honestly and for good reasons? What we want to know is Whether these are considerations upon which the Minister will act if there is an appeal under the existing law.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I certainly do not wish to go back on any pledge I have given. On the contrary, it stands. Nor am I trying to evade any issue.

Mr. Douglas: Will the hon. Gentleman implement it?

Mr. Strauss: I want to implement it and I want the hon. Gentlemen opposite to help me to implement it. I thought that in as plain language as I could use extempore on the last occasion I invited that co-operation. I thought the hon. Member was wrong in his view of the limitations of the existing law, but I knew he had given thought to the matter and I thought that at some time he would bring before


me the sort of matters he had in mind which we could examine further to see if there is any deficiency in the existing law. The hon. Member may be convinced but he has not convinced me by his speech in support of the proposed new Clause. I do not think a case for this Clause has been made out. I do not agree that the particular difficulties mentioned cannot be dealt with under the law as it stands, but it is possible that there are difficulties and I hope that the hon. Gentleman with his advisers will get into touch with my right hon. Friend and myself so that if not in this Bill then in another Bill we may be able to remedy any defects in the law. If one looks at this Clause many difficulties occur to one straight away. Obviously there would have to be some right of appeal against the imposition of the architecture proposed to be specified. There are a number of matters which would make this Clause in its present form impossible. But having said that I would add that I am in complete sympathy with the object sought. I think it can be largely secured under the existing law, but if hon. Members will consult with us as to what strengthening of the law is needed we will give it our closest consideration.

Mr. Douglas: The Attorney-General is here and perhaps he will appreciate even more fully the point I want to make. As I understand the argument it is that the Minister will have the power on the application of the local authority to give effect to what the local authority intend at a subsequent stage to put into its scheme. I should be very much surprised if the Attorney-General holds that a local authority is entitled to anticipate its scheme by giving effect to it on the interim development stage.

The Attorney-General: I do not know how it can do anything else. It has to exercise discretion during the interim period, and that must be exercised in the light of its ultimate intention as to the permanent development of the area. I understood my hon. Friend to say, and-I thought it must be right, that in any case where a local authority had thought out the architectural development, say, of a square, it not only could but would have to take into account, in considering development in the interim period,

whether that development work would fit in with the ultimate scheme. If it turned down the interim scheme on the ground that it did not then, although, as my hon. Friend says no Minister can pledge himself what he will decide about a particular building in St. James' Square, for instance, I should have thought it impossible to suggest that he would not regard the architectural aspect of the matter as a most vital and relevant consideration in deciding whether he should uphold the refusal.

Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and negatived.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Orders for preservation of buildings under principal Act.)

If it appears to the Minister upon the representations of any persons or otherwise that an order under Sub-section (1) of Section seventeen of the principal Act (which provides for the preservation of certain buildings ought to be made by any of the local authorities mentioned therein, but no such order has been made, the Minister may himself make such an order, and such order shall be deemed to have been made by the council of the county borough or county district within whose district the building to which such order relates is situate, and shall have effect accordingly.—[Mr. Hutchinson.]

Brought up, and read First time.

Mr. Hutchinson: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This Clause deals with the important subject of the preservation of buildings of special architectural and historical interest. The Committee spent some time earlier to-day in the discussion of this subject. I think that it can fairly be said that that discussion showed that the Committee were of the opinion that the existing provision for the preservation of buildings of this nature had proved insufficient. The provisions of the principal Act are contained in Section 17, which provides that a local authority may make an Order for the preservation of buildings of special architectural' or historical interest. It, however, appears that this power has not proved effective to preserve buildings of this nature to the extent which the Committee, or I think the public, desires that such buildings should be preserved. So far as my researches into the use which has been made of the powers under the Section have gone, that appears to be borne out by the fact that only a very small number of Orders have


apparently been made. During the whole period from 1938 to 1941 there were only 14 such Orders. During 1938, which is the last single year for which the Ministry of Health published information, only eight were made, and during the subsequence period from 1939 to 1941 only a further six were made. So that in four years the local authorities have only seen fit to exorcise this special power to preserve buildings of this nature in 14 different instances. It is fair to say that during the earlier period, before 1938, for which I regret that I have not the figures, a number of Orders of this sort may have been made. But still I think the discussion this morning, and the discussion which takes place not infrequently in the public Press on this subject, show that the public are by no means satisfied that the existing powers to preserve these interesting buildings are providing a sufficient safeguard.
There are probably three principal reasons why the local authorities have apparently refrained from exercising these powers. In the first place, there is a certain reluctance on the part of local authorities to constitute themselves arbiters in matters of this nature. I do not at all share the criticisms which many hon. Members have made of the action of local authorities in exercising their planning powers, and I am not by any means suggesting that their reluctance has been due to any failure to appreciate the importance of the subject or the widespread public demand that powers of this sort should be fully exercised. I think it is really due to a certain reluctance which they not unnaturally feel in deciding what particular buildings fall within this special class.
Another reason is, perhaps, that the definition in the principal Act of the class of buildings to which their powers relate has not in certain ways proved satisfactory. These buildings are defined as buildings "of special architectural and historic interest." A local authority may sometimes be faced with rather a perplexing problem when it has to decide whether a particular building has special architectural or historic interest. I hope to move an Amendment to the Schedule to this Bill which aims at altering this definition. The last, and perhaps the most important reason why local authorities have re

frained hitherto from exercising these powers is that, if they make use of them, they may expose themselves to claims for compensation. There again I hope to move an Amendment to the Schedule of this Bill which deals with that matter.
This new Clause proposes to deal with these difficulties in this way. One of the defects of Section 17 appears to be that, unless the local authority decide to make an Order for the preservation of a particular building, no one can compel them to do so. Nobody can make the Order for them: If they decide not to use their powers, that is the end of the matter both so far as the persons who may be interested in the building are concerned and so far as the Minister is concerned. The new Clause proposes to give the' Minister power to make an Order under Section 17 of the principal.Act in a case where it appears to him—

The Deputy-Chairman: Do I understand that the hon. and learned Member is discussing the second new Clause in his name? I have not allowed him to discuss the two together.

Mr. Hutchinson: I am discussing the first new Clause, but I respectfully submit that I must to some extent also refer to Section 17 of the principal Act.

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned that there was a second new Clause in his name, but I want to make it clear that we are not discussing that new Clause.

Mr. Hutchinson: Perhaps I ought to make it plain that the purpose of the new Clause I am,moving now is to give the Minister power to make an Order under Section 17 of the principal Act if the local authority fails to make such an Order. I suggest that this new Clause will provide a solution of the difficulties which we were discussing earlier to-day. The Minister is in a better position in any particular case to decide whether the buildings which it is desired to preserve fall within the scope of Clause 17. He has the advice of the Royal Fine Arts Commission. He may also have the advice of the Commissioners of Works', and he has the advice of his own achitectural staff. This Clause proposes that the Minister may act upon representations of any persons or otherwise. Earlier to-day something was said about similar' words


which appeared in another Amendment which I moved. The purpose of this expression is to make clear that the Minister may act upon the representations of any persons who desired to make representations to him and to make equally clear that he may also act if no representations at all are made' to him. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton (Dr. Thomas) put it to me earlier that this was a somewhat clumsy expression. But unless some such words are introduced, it will be said that the Minister has no power to receive representations about these buildings at all.

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. J. Dugdale) has on the Order Paper a Clause which covers very nearly the same ground as the Clause before us, and if he wishes to move his new Clause formally that is a matter for his decision, but it would probably be for the convenience of the Committee as a whole to discuss the two Clauses together if he will agree.

Mr. John Dugdale: Certainly, I will agree.

The Deputy-Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Dugdale: The hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson) has just told us that there were 28 Orders under Section 17 in four years.

Mr. Hutchinson: There were 14 Orders. There were six Orders during 1938 and eight Orders have been made since.

Mr. Dugdale: At any rate, my mathematics not being up to that very rapid addition, I will say that the number is exceedingly small. He has stated also that the principal reason is the question of compensation. The new Clause which I wish to move demands a straightforward repeal of Section 18. As hon. Members are aware, Section 17 says:
The council…may at any time make an order with respect to any building of special architectural or historic interest within that area,
and that without their consent the building shall not be demolished. But Section 18 says:
Any person whose property is injuriously affected by the coming into operation…of an Order under Section seventeen of this Act…shall be…entitled to recover as

compensation from the responsible authority…the amount by which the property is decreased in value.
The net result of Section 18 has been that Section 17 has virtually remained a deadletter. I have had some experience, as other Members have had, particularly the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin), of serving on the Town Planning Committee of the London County Council, and during that time, with the very best will in the world to preserve anything that was thought worth preserving in London, we were unable to preserve anything whatever because we could not bring into operation Section 17 without rendering ourselves liable for payments of compensation under Section 18 and getting into endless complications as a result. It is the same with other local authorities. I have tried to discover whether there is any method at all under the Town Planning Act of preserving any building without giving compensation to the owners. I think I am correct in saying that even Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral are not sacrosanct, that they could be destroyed, were such a thing possible, if the owners demanded compensation and said that they would destroy them unless they got it. I am not suggesting that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are going to do this, but I do suggest that many buildings, perhaps not as important as those I have mentioned, have in fact been destroyed in recent years. As an example I would mention Regent Street. If Regent Street could be destroyed have we any hope that St. James' Square, or Fitzroy Square, or any other of the better squares in London, have a chance of remaining intact in the coming years? We have seen also the destruction of houses such as Devonshire House and Chesterfield House, and what is to prevent the destruction of a building such as Chelsea Hospital, because there is nothing—and I cannot repeat this too often—that can prevent an owner from destroying his building unless he is given compensation.

Mr. Holdsworth: Quite right.

Mr. Dugdale: The hon. Member says "Quite right." Supposing I live in a house that is of architectural merit and supposing I do not want to destroy it at all. If an Order is made that I cannot destroy it I can demand compensation


for not doing a thing I had no intention of doing. Anybody else throughout the country can do exactly the same thing. I think it is a thoroughly unsatisfactory state of affairs. There are a number of us who, some years ago, took exception to the action of the Nazis in Germany in burning their books. I would submit that it is just as bad to destroy our very great architectural monuments as it is to burn our books.

Mr. Holdsworth: I agree with that, but a man does not insist on destroying buildings. If he,gets an offer for a building and you say he shall not destroy it, the man is quite justified in saying, "You must compensate me." I cannot see any wrong in that.

Mr. Dugdale: That sounds very reasonable. Yet on occasions it will do great harm. Personally, I think it is very unfortunate that it should be so. We may take the line, of course, that these things do not matter, that it really does not matter very much what happens to any of these buildings. If so, let us say so quite definitely. We may say that it is a waste of tithe. Then let us say so plainly, not only to ourselves but to the Americans. Let us say quite firmly to the Americans that we do not think it is of great importance to preserve these buildings and that Iv do not very much mind if they do fall by the wayside.
Let us say we do not even mind if this House is replaced by a building similar to the Woolworth building. Let us say that all these things are of no consequence and that we wish to preserve our rights as a free people to destroy buildings, because that is what -the law says at the present moment. If, in fact, that is our view, there is nothing more to be said, but, if we do care, I submit that we should take action now to prevent the speculative builder from destroying our fine buildings just as we have taken action to prevent our Fascist enemies from destroying other buildings with their bombing. I hope that we shall find after this war that we have some fine buildings still standing. So many have been destroyed of the very greatest importance that we should preserve those that may remain. I hope we shall not find that, as a result of inaction in this particular, the speculative builders and others who hope to

make a quick profit out of our buildings do not destroy more buildings than have in fact been destroyed by the enemy's bombing.

Mr. Harvey: I very much hope the Minister this time will not just express sympathy with the spirit of this new Clause and point out that he is unable to accept the wording or that this is not the proper place or time for it. Possibly the Minister is unwilling to take powers which might involve his imposing financial obligations on reluctant local authorities. But the remedy for that has already been pointed out. If either the Amendment in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson) or the new Clause of the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. J. Dugdale) were adopted, I think that would dispose of that objection, but it is surely of great importance that there should be some appeal to the Minister where the local authority, either through negligence or through ignorance, or because of reluctance to incur financial obligations, fails to do its duty not merely to this generation, but to posterity, because this is a matter of the utmost importance.
A good owner of property feels he is not just owning it for himself and his family; if he has an historical building that has come to him, he rightly feels that he has a duty to the country and to generations to come in preserving it, and a local authority ought to feel the same with regard to those historical and beautiful buildings -in their areas. The best local authorities, I think, do that, but we know that there are some authorities which are negligent, or careless, or indifferent, and in those cases surely it is of the greatest value that there should be an opportunity of appeal to the Minister. He need not exercise the right this Clause confers upon him unless he is convinced it is in the public interest. He will certainly be very careful about exercising it, because no Minister likes to interfere with local authorities or to pass a measure over their heads, but if he is convinced that a beautiful, ancient historic building is in danger of destruction, and he knows that the local authorities are not using the power they have, surely he ought not to refuse the opportunity given to him by this new Clause to protect and preserve this building, not only for this generation, but for generations yet to come.

Mr. Holdsworth: I do not intend to take up more than a moment, nor do I intend to discuss the new Clause moved by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson), but I hope the Minister will not accept the argument of the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. J. Dugdale). I know I should be out of Order to extend the scope of the Debate, but there is a great principle here involved.

Mr. Hutchinson: On a point of Order. I have an Amendment on the Paper to a Schedule to this Bill which raises this question of payment of compensation in respect of this particular class of buildings. Are we in order in discussing the question of compensation on my Clause, may I ask? Might it not be more convenient to postpone the discussion until we come to that Amendment?

The Deputy-Chairman: I am quite sure it would not be more convenient. The hon. and learned Gentleman himself got rather wide, as other Members possibly have done. Also it is not necessarily the case that the Amendment will be called.

Mr. Holdsworth: I think I am quite in Order.

The Deputy-Chairman: Yes, but not to extend the scope of the Debate.

Mr. Holdsworth: I have no intention of extending it, but you did suggest, Mr. Williams, that we might discuss at the same time the proposed new Clauses. The only thing I want to say is that I cannot think of anybody who has sense of beauty not being interested in retaining historical buildings. I do not want to see vandalism going on. What I would say is that if we are keen on this, if we are keen in restricting the owner's rights, then it is perfectly just that he should be compensated for the loss of his freedom of action.

Sir Percy Harris: I respect the argument of my hon. Friend, but I do want him to realise the inevitable reactions of his argument. London is a mass of ancient buildings, is full of artistic monuments which are not only the pride of London people but are the common possession of the whole of the British Commonwealth. Nowadays you will see Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand officers and men wandering about, not only in the West End but North, South, East, and West, finding some of the buildings which

they have learned about and seen pictures of for many years. London is really the symbol of the Commonwealth; and, from what I am informed, perhaps the only buildings of historical value in London that are safe from destruction are Crown property. There is no danger, for instance, of the Abbey or this building or any of the properties belonging to the City Corporation being destroyed. When they come to monuments belonging to private interests, it is now suggested by the hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. Holdsworth) that the owners should be able to hold up the State to ransom by threatening to destroy the buildings if
they are not compensated.

Mr. Holdsworth: That is the law at present; I am not asking for something new. The hon. Gentleman opposite wants to alter the law, and all I ask is that the owner's rights shall be safeguarded in that respect.

Sir P. Harris: Yes, but if a building is of historical value and is private property, all that the owner has to do is to threaten its destruction if he is not assured of compensation. Let us take the case of Queen Anne's Gate, one of the finest streets in London and of great historical interest. It may be Crown property—I do not know—but if it happens to be private property, obviously it might be a commercial proposition to turn it into a big private hotel or block of flats. If' it is scheduled as an ancient monument, the' owner might well threaten to pull it down, if in that way he could obtain compensation. My hon. Friend opposite has had practical experience of this sort of thing at work. I understand from him that as soon as property is scheduled an attempt is made to hold- the community up to ransom—I do not like to use the word "blackmail," as that would be unfair. Take the case of the Inns of Court. Part of the Inns of Court has been destroyed; but other parts, thank God, have escaped the bombs. If the shrewd lawyers who are the trustees of that property were to be told that if they threatened to pull those buildings down the local authority would have to compensate them for their self-denial in keeping them up, it would be a very serious position. We have, fortunately, two very learned Members present. The Minister in charge of the Bill is a distinguished lawyer, and he has the Attorney-General on his left and a


former Attorney-General on his right. We should like some guidance from them. London is full of beautiful and historical associations. It would be a tragedy if in years to come we should approach the problem of this development on purely commercial lines.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I find this Clause proposed by my hon. Friend extremely attractive as a rather uncomfortable tenant of a Bill whose purpose it is to control new buildings and new development. That is what the Bill sets out to do, and here is a Clause not to control new building and development but to preserve old buildings. Though both may be very good objects, new developments and the preservation of old buildings, they make very awkward bed-fellows. I would not like to accept the new. Clause without seeing clearly what it all means. It is rather significant that the discussion which started with the aesthetic qualities of old buildings and the desire for their preservation should have finished on the sordid topic of money, but the two things are unmistakably intertwined. The hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. J. Dugdale), who shares the same object and desires the preservation of these old buildings, has proposed a clear-cut proposition, which is to deny compensation at all for these buildings if subject to a preservation Order. That is a very great deal to inject in a Bill for controlling new development, and I would ask for a little time to consider if it could be fitted in or what we should do about it. Let me put up one of my difficulties. It raises not only the money question but the whole question of the default power of the Minister over local authorities who are not carrying out what they should do. That is a comprehensive question. I should like to consider it as part of transitional legislation dealing with that matter and not hang it on to an important but subsidiary question involving ancient buildings. If one could deal with the matter in a comprehensive way, it would be far better.

Sir P. Harris: Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking to bring in another Bill of this kind within the next few months or the present Session?

Mr. Morrison: I cannot give a timetable. There is a great deal to be done

at the present time, but it will be necessary to introduce new legislation to recast the planning system, and all sorts of questions will have to come up for consideration.

Mr. Hutchinson: I do not ask my right hon. Friend to give me any undertaking about the matter, but will he give the Committee an assurance that when these new powers are considered, special consideration will be given to this important question of the preservation of ancient buildings?

Mr. Morrison: I will certainly give that assurance. When we get our new powers we shall review the whole question of historic and ancient buildings, and I believe that we shall make a better job of it than by proceeding with this Clause as it is now. The cost of this is vital. I cannot accept the suggestion put forward by the hon. Member for West Bromwich that you should exclude compensation. If I took powers to force local authorities not to take certain action with regard to particular buildings, there might be strong claims against me for an Exchequer contribution to pay for it. The object has my entire approval and sympathy, but I think it can be dealt with better and more comprehensively later and I ask my hon. and learned Friend to accept my assurance.

Earl Winterton: The Minister's statement illustrates, not for the first time, that this Bill is but a miserable little mouse in spite of the quantitative support it has had from the legal profession throughout. I hope that what my right hon. Friend has said in rather general terms will be translated into a concrete pledge that he is going to deal with this important question in one of the numerous Bills which, as a result of this Bill being brought in, the Government have discovered for the first time it will be necessary to bring forward in the future. One of the most urgent things the Department should have dealt with when it was first formed was the question of the preservation of ancient buildings. I hope it will be dealt with by the Department at an early date.

The Deputy-Chairman: Does the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dug-dale) wish to withdraw his new Clause?

Mr. John Dugdale: In view of the fact that the Minister has said,that he would


consider the matter seriously and will introduce something which will help towards the object I have in view, I will not press my new Clause.

Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and negatived.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Variation of
agreements.)

(1) Where since an agreement was entered into under Section thirty-four of the principal Act (which empowers a person to enter into an agreement with any of the authorities therein mentioned to make his land subject to conditions restricting the planning, development or use thereof) it has become expedient owing to a change of circumstances or otherwise to vary or annul the agreement such variation or annulment may be effected either—

(a) by an agreement between such person or the person deriving title under him and the authority with whom the original agreement was made, or

(b) by an order of the Minister on the application of such person or the person deriving title under him or of such authority.

(2) Any agreement entered into under this Section may be enforced in like manner and to the like extent as an agreement under the said Section thirty-four.—[Mr. Hutchinson.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Hutchinson: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This new Clause, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), deals with a very small matter but one to which certain local authorities attach a good deal of importance. In Clause 4 the Bill provides that an interim consent to development may be varied or revoked at the discretion or authority of the Minister. Development is not only controlled by an interim development Order but in certain cases it may be controlled by agreement under Section 34 of the principal Act made between the development authority and the owner of the land. Although this Act provides that consent may be revoked or varied it deals in no way with agreement under Section 34 and this new Clause seeks to enable an agreement made in those circumstances to be revoked or varied in certain conditions in the same way as interim consent may be revoked or varied. It seems right that if development which is controlled by consent may be varied by some subsequent variation or revocation then development which is controlled by agreement under Section 34 should be dealt with in the same way.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I am unable to accept this new Clause which has been moved by my hon. and learned Friend. I think there may be some misunderstanding about it. It is one thing to vary an agreement by consent of the parties but quite mother for one party with the consent of the Minister to vary a contract without the consent of the other party to it. What my hon. and learned Friend has in mind can, I think, be dealt with in another way. In so far as an agreement can be said to embody an interim development consent, undoubtedly that interim development consent can be varied under the Bill. It seems to be of importance to maintain the principles, first that, where an interim development permission is given, its nature and effect are not altered by the fact that it is given as part of an agreement under Section 34; and secondly that an agreement under Section 34 which does not in terms confer interim development permission does not release the landowner from the necessity for obtaining such permission. That, I think, is the position under the law if we do not accept this Amendment, and I think if my hon. and learned Friend—who I think is gallantly taking the place of an absent Member—reconsiders it, he may reach that conclusion himself. Perhaps in these circumstances he will' consent to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Hutchinson: Before I do that, may I ask my hon. Friend if he is of opinion that an agreement under Section 34 of the principal Act may be varied under this Bill by reason of the power to vary a consent Order?

Mr. Strauss: I think it all depends on what you mean by varying an agreement. In so far as it contains an interim development consent, that consent can be varied.

Mr. Hutchinson: In view of the explanation of my hon. Friend, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Clause.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

First Schedule agreed to.

SECOND SCHEDULE.—(Repeas of 22 and
23 Geo. 5 C. 48.)

Mr. Hutchinson: I beg to move, in page 12, line 43, at the end to add:


Section seventeen.—In Sub-section (1) the word special.
Section eighteen.—In Sub-section (1, a) the words or by the coming into operation of an Order under Section seventeen of this Act ' and the words or Order.
The purpose of this Amendment is to amend Section 17 of the principal Act. As I was explaining to the Committee a few moments ago. Section 17 of the principal Act deals with the preservation of buildings of special architectural or historic interest. The definition of this class of buildings is "buildings of special architectural or historic interest." That is a very unsatisfactory definition. One of the reasons why local authorities have been reluctant to exercise their powers under this section of the principal Act has been the difficulty which they have felt in determining whether a building was of "special architectural or historic interest." The difficulty really arises owing to the introduction of the word "special" in the definition. A building may be architecturally interesting and may be historically interesting but that is not sufficient. The planning authority has to determine whether it is of special architectural interest or special historic interest. No authority would find much difficulty in deciding that a building such. as Westminster Abbey is a building of special architectural interest; but many buildings which most people regard as having a good deal of architectural interest would not necessarily be regarded as possessing that special degree of interest which would justify an Order.
If I may take the example to which the right hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir Percy Harris) referred a moment ago, the houses in Queen Anne's Gate, there you have a group of houses undoubtedly of architectural interest. But there are numerous houses in different parts of London of exactly the same architectural type. Can it be said that the houses in Queen Anne's Gate are houses of special architectural interest which would justify an Order being made under this Section? I see the Parliamentary Secretary nods his head, and I am glad that he agrees with that, but the difficulty is that it is not my right hon. Friend who has to decide this. In fact he has just rejected my proposal that he should do so. It is the local authority which has to decide this. It is not in the mind of my right hon. Friend that

these doubts arise, but in the mind of the unfortunate local authority. If I may give one more example, the Minister without Portfolio carries on his operations in a building in Whitehall which is undoubtedly a building of architectural interest. But, there again, there exist many buildings in London of very much the same character. If one was asked to say whether that building possesses special architectural interest, it might be difficult for a local authority to say whether it did or not. Local authorities might take different views, and architects might take different views. I hope my right hon. Friend will agree to take out this word which has been the source of a great deal of the ineffectiveness of the power it was intended to give local authorities, and leave them the easier and more straightforward task of determining whether a particular building is of architectural or historic interest or not.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I should like to congratulate my hon. and learned Friend on the skill with which he has woven in and out the words "special architectural interest" and "architectural interest." It is clear, even from his attempt to put it clearly before us, that it must remain forever a matter of taste as to whether a building is in one category or the other. I do not see how the task of local authorities would be made easier by leaving out the word "special." I should imagine that there are very few buildings in the world which have not some architectural interest—even the morbid interest of being a horrible example of what should not be done. If we were to have preservation Orders for such monstrosities, we should find ourselves ossifying and petrifying forever the good with the bad. If merely interest were to be the criterion whether this process of picking was to be performed, we should be very much worse off than we are. At least the word "special" makes people a little seriously consider whether there is something about the architectural or historical interest of a building which puts it in a separate category from other buildings which have an historic interest. The thing is made easier if we stick to the words.

Mr. Harvey: I think the Minister in his handling of the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument has been unjust to the substance of his argument. The Minister's


argument would imply that a specially bad building has a special architectural interest. If you really want to preserve it, you want to give the widest powers and the greatest encouragement to local authorities to do so, and the hon. and learned Gentleman made it clear how difficult in certain cases the decision is for a local authority which is hampered by the construction of the word "special." I hope, if the Amendment cannot be accepted now, the right hon. Gentleman will consider the possibility of accepting it in another place.

Mr. Morrison: I hope I was not unfair in the treatment that I gave to the subject. It may be carrying it a little too far to say a horrible example of historical interest, though you could not say it was -not. But there is in between the extreme that I took and the other extreme of a beautiful Minster like York, a great area; and certainly by leaving out the word "special" would would be bound to include a lot of buildings of architectural interest which were not really worth preservation if some social object could be secured by redeveloping the site.

Amendment negatived.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

RAILWAY FREIGHT REBATES BILL

[Lords]

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for the next Sitting Day.—[Mr. Boulton.]

TELEGRAPH BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Grimston): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The House will recollect that during his Budget statement the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the time had now arrived when a further contribution to the man-power problem must be asked of the Post Office and that to that end, certain services were being reduced and the charges on others were being increased.
Particulars of the increase of charges on telegrams were embodied in the financial statement which was issued with the Budget, and my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General dealt with them at some length during a subsequent Budget Debate. The object of this Bill is to give effect to these increases, since Parliament in its wisdom has decided that it must lay down a maximum charge which the Postmaster-General can charge for telegrams. The present proposal increases the charges beyond the maximum laid down by the 1920 Act, and hence the reason why we have to come to the House and ask for legislation.
In the Budget Debate the Postmaster-General referred to the 20 per cent, increase which had taken place in the volume of telegraph traffic since the war. Several hon. Members raised the question whether the increase was due almost entirely to Service telegrams of various sorts and they asked whether figures could be produced. I have had some figures got out. They show that the total increase in the volume of telegraph traffic is now of the order of 11,250,000 telegrams a year. Of these, 3,500,000 represent the increase in what I may call O.H.M.S. telegrams, and the balance is the increase in ordinary telegrams. Under 0.H.M.S. telegrams would come casualty and other Service telegrams, and under the ordinary telegrams would come those which are sent by Servicemen going on leave. It will be seen that there is a field for economy in both these directions. We are circularising the other Departments with regard to O.H.M.S. telegrams, stressing the necessity of reducing them as far as possible consistent with necessity. As far as the public are concerned, we are doing what we can by way of propaganda. Hon. Members will no doubt have seen the "Telegraph less signs on the red Post Office mail vans, and the increased charges are designed purely as a deterrent and not in the interests of the Revenue.
The Bill is a simple one. Clause permits the maximum rate of is. for nine words whereas at present we cannot charge more than is. for the first 12 words or less. Clause 2 ensures that special charges, such as those for greetings telegrams, which for the moment are suspended, may be charged by the Postmaster-General, and Clause 3 extends


the Act to Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man and also repeals certain provisions of the Act of 1920 which will cease to be operative. I wish to repeat that the Post Office regrets having to impose these increased charges. We realise that in these days of difficult travelling people want to communicate more with one another by other means, but the growth to which I have referred must be checked. If it is not checked we shall not be able to carry on efficiently the essential traffic which must go on in the interests of the war effort. I think the House will be surprised to know, as I was surprised to learn, that even since the abolition of greetings telegrams, the volume of telegrams of greeting, that is to say "Many happy returns" and "Congratulations," and so on, is still greater than all the O.H.M.S. telegrams put together, and we really must do all we can to discourage the unnecessary use of the telegraph at the present time. I feel sure the House and the country will understand and will co-operate in this effort.

Mr. Brooke: I am grateful for the explanation and the additional facts which the Assistant Postmaster-General has given in introducing this Bill, and I do not wish to stand in the way of the Government getting it, but. I should like to show that hon. Members do take an interest even in small Bills like this, and in particular I would draw attention to what strikes me as a curiosity. Before we can raise telegraph charges we have to pass a Bill through all its stages in both Houses, but the Postmaster-General has power to do anything he likes now about raising the telephone or postal charges without coming to Parliament. So far as I am aware, up to the end of the last war he was governed by Statute as to the maximum charges he could make for telegrams, for inland newspapers, for printed packets, and for inland postcards. In an Act of 192o he got the House to agree to remove the statutory maximum from inland postcards and printed packets, though it was retained for telegrams and for newspapers. In the Bill we passed in the first year of the war, in 1940, we consented to the removal of this statutory maximum from newspapers but again retained it for telegrams, and now, when in order to diminish the traffic the Government wish to raise the charges for tele-

grams, they have to come to the House for permission.
It seems to me that Parliament should make up its mind definitely one way or the other as regards all these services. If it is desirable that one of them, the telegraph service, should be governed by statutory maximum charges, surely it is equally desirable that much more widely used services, the postal service and the telephone service, should be similarly governed. If, on the other hand, Parliament has made up its mind that it is no longer necessary to control the action of the Postmaster-General in the case of the postal and telephone services, I very much doubt whether there can be any reason for continuing to exercise this control over him in the matter of telegraph charges. I know that a subject exercising the mind of many Members of Parliament is whether we are giving the Government too free a hand in making alterations without coming to the House, but here is a case where the House itself has got itself into an anomalous position, and one day I trust the House will clear up that position. For myself, I believe that pressure on Parliamentary time is going to become greater and greater as the years go on, and if it is in fact the case that Parliament does not wish to exercise direct control over postal and telephone charges, I would suggest that it should relax that control over maximum telegraph charges and make it no longer necessary for the Postmaster-General to have to come to the House in future whenever he wishes to alter those charges.
It always gives me some anxiety when I see in a Bill reference to Acts as far back as 1863. In Clause 2, it is stated that this Act and the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1940, may be cited as the Telegraph Acts, 1863 to 1943. There have been great improvements in the telegraph service and in arrangements generally over a period of So years, and if hon. Members will look back at the 1863 Act they will find references to carriages and turnpikes and foreign plantations and things of that kind and—an interesting point—a statutory definition of what a telegraph post is. If my suggestions have made any impression on the House, I hope that at some future date the Postmaster-General may bring forward a Bill consolidating the Telegraph Acts and making it unnecessary for us in


this House to have to deal with these little isolated Bills in future.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for the next Sitting Day.—[Mr. Boulton.]

GAS (SPECIAL ORDERS).

Resolved,
That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Minister of Fuel and Power under the Gas Undertakings

Acts, 1920 to 1934, on the application of the Uxbridge, Maidenhead, Wycombe and District Gas Company, which was presented or 18th April and published, be approved."—[Ma. Tom Smith.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after the hour appointed for the Adjournment of the House, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.